Thamnophis
by pandaneedshug
Summary: Rokudaime Hokage Naruto and Sasuke Uchiha fail to defeat the Otsusuki clan when they come to destroy the planet, and one of the world's greatest scientists enacts her backup plan, traveling back into time to try and better prepare the world. Transgender Orochimaru. Time travel fic.
1. Chapter 1

Story Summary: Naruto and Sasuke fail to defeat the Otsusuki clan when they come to destroy the planet, and one of the world's greatest scientists enacts her backup plan, traveling back into time to try and better prepare the world. Transgender Orochimaru. Time travel fic.

AN: Hello and welcome to my story. I've never written much before, but this is some practice. I've always loved the character of Orochimaru, and especially with her depiction as possibly female in the new Boruto series. I know she's not canonically transgender (beyond when she actually takes a female body), but I think given it's a shonen manga and from a somewhat conservative country, I'd imagine redrawing her the way they did was probably the closest we'd get to a transgender character.

The story is set to M to be safe, but it will likely remain at most "T" content.

Disclaimer: I make no profit from this work, and it is fair use.

I had timed it exactly right, so that my old self stood before me in the desert of Kaze no Kuni. I remember this day pretty well, I had setup a secret meeting with the Fourth Kazekage, where I had ambushed him and taken his place. He'd been over two hours late to the meeting, an insult which at the time I'd repaid by letting him bleed to death in the hot sand after I'd sealed his chakra and stolen his face. But now it served its purpose, an easily identified location where I could find my old self alone for hours.

"You look remarkably like someone trying to impersonate a sister of mine" my old self rumbled, her voice artificially deep, standing as though she had simply not aged for half a century. An illusion crafted by fake skin.

I knew the next few seconds were crucial to my plans, but even now my resolve faltered. Would it really be so bad to leave my old self alive? Was it possible I could convince her to abandon her plans of vengeance on Konoha and theft of the Uchiha bloodline? I knew how unreasonable myself could be, and without letting myself feel remorse I launched into a secret sequence of handseals I had never shared with anyone, a secret flaw in my old immortality technique.

Upon seeing the order of my hand seals, my old self rushed forward, her Kusunagi sword moving at Shunshin speeds to slice my head off.

Rookie mistake. My old self should've known decapitation would barely effect me.

I finished my handseals and released the technique, a blast of chakra pushing out from me and passing through Orochimaru, her body freezing and falling over as the Fushi Tensei failed her, sealing her mind back into her body and letting the original hosts personality surface.

Quickly letting my head reattach, I rushed forward and with a handseal dropped the groggy body into sleep. It was done.

I found her cursed seal, where my old self would be sealed, and began to absorb her chakra. I'd never felt a chakra so easy to absorb, my own chakra. Although I'd changed in the future, shifting to using white zetsu bodies full time, my old chakra was still familiar to me, and despite the immensity of it, was quickly incorporated. I felt powerful, the essence of my chakra nearly doubled in its potency, and I allowed a laugh to finally escape from me. This time around, I'd do things better, smarter. I wouldn't allow my world to end because of the foolish failures of other Shinobi or the evil powers of the Otsuki

I'd done it. I'd traveled to the past and replaced my old self.

I slipped into sage mode and allowed my senses to extend beyond me, looking for the Kazekage. I could sense his aura traveling at a slow pace in my direction, a determined steel of a man who'd chosen village over family. I idly pondered the female body before me, deep in forced sleep. I could probably leave her alive, but it'd be best to seal her ability to discuss what she knew of the old form of my Fushi Tensei. She had been a powerful ninja originally, my first experiment in actually adopting the female gender. She was from the Land of Rice, a jounin-level shinobi I had adopted the body of due to her strong chakra potency and minor Kekkai Genkai that allowed her hair to regrow quickly and harden. I'd never taken to utilizing the techniques myself during my time in her body, but it'd been a calculated risk to try taking over the body of a Kekkai Genkai user. I'd not known at the time if Fushi Tensei would be easy to hold over someone whose chakra was radically different than my own, as my first host had been chosen due to the similarity his chakra nature had with mine. I'd taken her after Itachi had cut off my arm, and I was already trying to determine what it would take for a Uchiha body.

I quickly placed the Cursed Tongue Eradication seal on her, the typical black bars forming on her tongue, as I used the technique I'd copied from Danzo to make any topic regarding me, my reanimation jutsu or Oto forbidden. I resolved to relocate her somewhere she could be productive, and placed a stronger sleep seal on her as the Kazekage drew close. With a few handseals, I summoned a snake.

The creature looked at me with confusion, its eyes flickering between my strange female form and the clearly unconscious female who, due to the snakeskin face hiding technique, looked just like the Orochimaru the snakes had always known.

"Take this body back with you, and do not kill her. I will come shortly to resettle her." I commanded.

The snake looked uncertain at my unfamiliar female voice, and I let out a small burst of KI at it, the clearly Orochimaru chakra convincing the snake to follow my command and transport the unconscious body away.

Rasa, the Fourth Kazekage entered the clearing at that time, two bodyguards I remembered nothing about marching at his side.

"You asked to meet me here to finalize our plans for the invasion of Konoha. What is it you need to discuss?" he shouted from across the rocky clearing as he continued to make his way up to me.

I started moving towards him, the two of us meeting in the middle of the clearing. He was wearing his traditional Kazekage costume, the silly ornamental hat emblazoned with pride that his mediocre village had chosen him to be their strongest. Given his successor was a fourteen year old who'd been selected after he'd recently been beaten by a group of Konoha genin, I was not impressed in the slightest. The third Kazekage was a far more magnificent specimen, his iron sand techniques had been a marvel to observe. Nonetheless, I knew the man was at least S-rank, and if left alive would serve as an extra obstacle to the Akatsuki's ability to secure the Ichibi.

"well?" he spoke, his tone filled with wariness, his eyes flickering to the Kusunagi my old-self had left on the ground behind me. If he was surprised at my feminine form, he didn't show it.

"I have decided to not invade Konoha. I've grown bored with the idea of revenge."

The man was silent, and I quickly let myself slip into sage mode to gauge his emotions. His aura was filled with suspicion, anger, and a smidgen of relief. Perfect. Hopefully he'd be amenable to the next step of my plan.

"Although it's unfortunate our partnership to destroy Konoha couldn't come about, I'd like to hire some of your Shinobi for an altogether different set of mission"

"You are telling me that the months of preparation we have put into place to lay siege to Konoha, the promises you've made to assist on that front, the risk I've placed my own children in, are all for nothing? That you're abandoning your end of the bargain due to boredom?"

Definitely angry.

"The missions I'm planning on in particular include recurring S-rank and A-rank missions that I will agree to fund. I'll even pay for the first few months up front. You originally said that the goal of the invasion was to gain more missions right?"

"And what exactly are these 'recurring' missions you're offering me instead of an invasion" the man spat out. His aura was filled with tightly bound anger and a growing feeling of distrust.

"I'd like to hire Suna shinobi to come to Otogakure and serve as consultants. My village is hardly formed, a ragtag collection I suppose you could say. To grow and prosper, we need structure and an academy system. And while I have some plans for my village, I have recently started on a number of ambitious projects which will be taking up my time. Furthermore, I'd like to hire your shinobi to lend support to a growing rebellion against Chigiri. It'd likely serve as a great repurposing to the expenses you've invested in this invasion, and if the revolution succeeds they'd be indebted to your nation"

Rasa stood silent, his aura reflecting the deep thought he was in as he eyed me warily, his distrust still highly present but his anger slowly subsiding to contemplation and what I hoped was a slight sliver of hope. I'd never been good at identifying positive emotions with sage mode. His bodyguards, excellent in their stillness, clearly lost their calm façade when examined by their auras. They were confused, wary and suspicious, as well as a fair bit of shock.

Rasa finally spoke: "Do you have more details regarding these proposals? Meddling in not one, but two countries domestic affairs would be seen in a bad light by many, and I'm skeptical to send many of my ninja into foreign territory for extended missions."

I chuckled. "Unless the pay was good enough, I presume, and I promise you, I've recently discovered a great source of wealth. I'll send a representative to negotiate the details of the terms, but for now, I want an agreement that neither of us will attempt to attack Konoha during the exams"

"Fine" the Kazekage said quickly. "I will be expecting your representative soon. I will be greatly displeased if we've dedicated the resources for an invasion and find few outlets to expend those resources" A threat. How cute.

"Goodbye Yondaime Kazekage for now, it's been a pleasure" I give him my prettiest feminine smile, and he blanches at the image. His gaze quickly grazes over my chest, and noticing the obvious bulge, what seems like a dozen emotions flicker through his mind, disgust being the most obvious. Disappointing.

I wait in the clearing as he and his guards depart, and pick up the sword of Kusunagi my counterpart had left. I unseal my own copy of the sword, and quickly contemplate how hard it would be to master using two-swords at once. One sword that could grow to endless lengths, cut through steel and be telepathically controlled was an amazing device, two of them at once would be practically cheating.

Orochimaru grinned, sheathed both her swords into seals, and set off to the east. It was good to be in the past.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: No clue who's reading this, but I'm in Hong Kong and I've been loving the cooler weather.

" _We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done._ " – Alan Turning

Kimimaro was the first one I saw, he was approaching directly towards me, likely concerned he'd not sensed any sign of a fight. I could sense the other members of the sound five a few kilometers past him, waiting to take up the positions of the Kazekage bodyguards. As I approached them, they stared at me wearingly. Clearly I was not the same Orochimaru they had seen just this morning.

"Orochimaru-Sama may I inquire if your plans have changed?" Kimimaro stated, his body subtly shifting into a combat position I'd taught him that disguised his stance.

Kimimaro, what a shame I'd not been able to save him the first time around. He'd been an A-rank fighter at 15 while terminally ill, and I was sure with time, recovery and mentoring he'd be a powerful S-rank threat. Of the collection of ninjas my old-self had assembled, I knew him to be one of the few worthy of keeping. Alas he was also perceptive enough to know how unlikely it was I had swapped bodies in the course of just a few hours.

"Yes Kimimaro, I'd just had an epiphany and perfected a technique I'd been working on for a long time. With this new development, I will no longer have need of new host bodies and no longer need the Uchiha boy"

His green eyes slowly traced the changes to my body, the female dress I'd donned, the obvious breasts that could be seen under my robes and the clearly distinct voice I'd begun using in my new form. At the same time, I had stopped suppressing my chakra and I knew Kimimaro could sense the authenticity of my Chakra. Though even that would be suspicious, it's not everyday someone seems to drastically increase in chakra potency in half a day.

He stood rigid still for a moment, robes billowing slightly in the wind and his face somewhat red from the heat of the Suna desert. Would he attack? Inquire about my changes? Or accept it and simply wonder for a time period?

His contemplation was interrupted when his whole body wracked with coughs, his knees buckling and bloody coughs being spurted into his hands. He shook as he tried to regain his composure, and I decided to rush forward, my hands green with healing chakra.

He nearly sliced me as I came up to him, his suspicion combining with instincts to start growing a bone blade, but a combination of the strain and self-restraint stopped the technique before it penetrated his skin. I began a diagnosis jutsu on him, and confirmed what I'd verified in the future: his disease was microscopic polyangiitis. It was an immune disease that could only be treated with immune system suppressants, the treatment had been pioneered by Konoha Hospital about 11 years in the future by Tsunade and her student Sakura.

"Kimimaro, I need you go back to the rest of your team and ask them to escort you back to the Oto. I've recently come across a lead that I must follow up. I will return shortly. Instruct them to also diffuse the plans for an invasion."

Kimimaro continued shaking with coughs, no gas expelling but his body struggling to resist the temptation. I healed some of the physical damage to lungs with the mystical palm technique, and as he recovered he looked up at me in surprise. At the time, I'd not been adept at healing others.

"Also do not mention the changes to my appearance to anyone yet. This is a command Kimimaro-san"

He slowly nodded, and after I healed some of the lesions in his organs, he struggled back to his feet.

"Thank you Orochimaru-Sama for healing me. You didn't have to waste your Chakra on someone like me"

Wow. I'd almost forgotten how pathetic my old self had liked to keep her underlings, all of them like dogs, expected to be dedicated to a fault with no expectations of anything in return.

"Do not presume to tell me if I'm wasting my chakra. You are one of my most powerful shinobi and keeping you alive is a priority. Now go back to Oto and enforce my command to stand down."

"Hai Orochimaru-Sama", and Kimimaro started off towards the sound four.

It was tiring dealing with underlings who needed coddling and controlling. My old self had preferred to alternate between honey and vinegar, cultivating a sense of worship where staying in my favor had been the premiere goal, just as disappointing me was dangerous. It had its uses, but I'd honestly prefer if I could simply the shinobi in my loyalty alone for years and presume they'd be productive without directions. Only a few of my shinobi were worth attention. I'd kept a legion of C, B and A-rank shinobi under my command with the goal of having a military force for invasion, but now without any intention of invading a region, they were pointless. I'd lost a large chunk of my chuunin-level shinobi during the invasion, and I didn't really have plans on what they'd do rather than die. Make money I suppose? Train in case I ever saw a use for them?

What I really needed was a proxy, a competent shinobi who could be trusted to actually lead a village to relative prosperity. Someone I could simply place in charge of Oto and trust to pursue things like developing an academy system. A combination of loyalty, competency and strength.

I didn't have anyone.

The most powerful shinobi I knew I could influence were Kimimaro, Kabuto and Guren, and none of them were suitable to becoming a proxy leader. Kimimaro and Kabuto were competent and loyal, but they were not currently strong enough to simply leave in charge of a village. Guren on the other hand was unstable.

I shook off my thoughts, it was something I had a few days to think about. For now though, I knew exactly where I was heading.

They say ignorance is bliss, and I could only smile at the thought of the shopkeepers unknowingly helping dress Orochimaru the Sanin, dangerous S-rank shinobi famous for not just murdering people, but kidnapping them, forcing them to bear children, and then performing gruesome and torturous experiments on their children. But the women weren't frightful at all, my chakra tightly compressed, and instead they dithered around me comparing fabrics to my skin and asking me if I was interested in wearing foundation.

To them, I was simply Aiko, a wealthy but presumably non-dangerous shinobi lady looking for stylish new battle robes.

"No Keiko-San, I'm rather fond of my skin tone." I purred out at them, as they continued measuring fabric against my naked skin.

"Well usually cool colors like blue and green work wonders with pale skin, you usually want to avoid pinks as they might simply make your face looked washed out" they rambled about color schemes for a moment, before I directed them to focus on purple and green.

I've no idea if they were simply trying to make me happy, but they seemed to think purple and green color schemes were delightful, and they started showing me color pairings like purple and gold or green with silver or black.

"And what do you think about floral patterns Aiko-San?", one of the ladies whose name I didn't know raised up a bright purple sheet, a bright purple color with yellow flowers faintly visible in the fabric.

Laughing, I enjoyed the chance to finally relax, as the women continued moving around me, taking measurement and complimenting how pretty I was.

The hot springs were a soothing and relaxing experience, my body resting in warm water. Although my eyes and face were slightly strange to the other women, they weren't too bothered. In the edge of the springs, a group of young girls seemed to be playing with each other, splashing water across themselves and discussing things like bodies and boys in the sacrosanct privacy of the spring. Near the doors, a middle aged women was helping a very young girl who was in a bathing suit into the water, a precious picture of a mother teaching a daughter to swim.

My eyes glazed over them, and I lost myself in thoughts, my mind wandering to the topics of Log and Mitsuki. My sons. I remembered when I taught Mitsuki to swim, already self conscious of his body and refusing to remove his shirt. He'd also been terrified of swimming, a boy of only 4. I'd never appreciated young children until I took the time to raise them, the love they felt for their parents an amazing thing. This was before Mitsuki really understood who I was, before he learned I was transgender, before he even understood what such a thing was or had the ability to be disgusted by it. Back then, I'd simply been "Okaa-saa", an adorable feat of talking I'd been immeasurably proud at.

I'm pretty sure Mitsuki was the only person who knew me first as a women, and his innocent proclamation that I was his Okaa-Saa was one of the happiest moments of my life. He knew me as his mother, as a women, and hadn't come to doubt that until much later in his life, when he stopped being the cute boy who only saw his mother as amazing and capable of anything.

I had tried to impress him by forming a pool myself, shifting the earth to form a basin which I then filled with water. He'd laughed with joy as I formed snakes shaped out of water and had them dance across the basin, before they slithered into the growing pool. It'd worked, the boy had tried chasing the water snakes all the way into the pool, his fear of water forgotten by the joy of chakra.

It was a shame I'd been forced to leave my children behind. A shame that Konoha couldn't keep themselves safe from the Otsutuski clan, that the shinobi world failed to keep Mitsuki safe. I'd trusted Konoha with my sons livelihood and they'd let him die.

This time things would be different.

As I continued relaxing into the heat and pondering how I might move forward, I heard a faint snickering from the edges of the spring, my enhanced hearing picking up what the other women didn't notice.

No.

What were the fucking odds?

I quickly let sage chakra slip into myself, and focused on the surrounding area, and sure enough I could feel a toad-like presence right outside the walls the of the spring. I turned in the direction of the presence, and saw a tiny hole in the wood of the springs.

The thought of Jiriaya spying on me was as disgusting as it was intriguing. The ability of the pervert to be attracted to my naked form was validating in a way, just as the idea of Jiriaya was… a solid nope.

I'd also not intended to run into my old teammate. While I was confident he couldn't defeat me, especially with my extra twenty years of experience, he was far too perceptive and I didn't want to kill him. He ended up training Naruto, and as much as Naruto had failed me in the future, the boy ended up stronger than myself.

I moved into the changing rooms where I donned a feminine purple robe with golden trim, a more traditional styled Kuinochi robe. Slightly impractical for fighting in, so I secured it around my hourglass waist with a band of purple rope.

My hair was still wet, but I wouldn't want to risk drying it with chakra and drawing the attention of Jiriaya, so I simply put it into a band behind me.

I slipped out into the street and began heading in a direction out of town, when I was stopped by Jiriaya standing before me, face agape as he stared directly at me.

"Hello Jiriaya-chan"

I nearly smirked as Jiriaya's mouth fell open even more and his eyes begun staring directly at my chest. His face steeled, a hard look falling over his eyes. He probably thought I'd stolen this body.

Well. I suppose I'd stolen the body, but the human rights of a white zetsu clone were pretty debatable.

"Young lady, you look far too much like a man I used to know. You should come with me so I can ask you some questions, no fear, for I'm the Gallant Jiriaya!" At this point, he pushed his first foot forward, spreading his legs and taking on a pose that half-ready to jump into combat and half-looking like a buffoon mating dance and he flashed a toothy grin at me.

The smile did not reach his eyes.

"Jiriaya-chan, you're being awfully forward to your old teammate. I'm a third-date kind of gal.."

At this point, I let a bit of my chakra suppression go and I took on a sinister grin. If avoiding him was impossible then I might as well enjoy the chance to fight.

He stared at me quietly for a few moments, grin slowly fading into a deep frown.

He made the first move, dashing forward in a powerful kick, and I Cheshire grinned as I brought my hand up to block. It'd been nearly 40 years since I got to spar Jiriaya, and I was going to give him a whoppin.

AN: Leave a review if you liked the chapter! Thanks for reading 😊


	3. Chapter 3

AN: Fight scenes are hard to write! A greater appreciation for all those fanfiction writers out there with epic fight scenes, I rewrote this 2 times and eventually had to resign that it's difficult to do a fight justice with only words!

His sandaled foot kicking into my arm, Jiriaya almost seemed surprised when I blocked instead of dodged, his tactic quickly adjusting as he kicked off my block and in a surprising feat of agility of an overweight old man, turned midair rasengan forming in his hand as he jabbed the technique towards me with incredible speed.

As one who'd been struck by a rasengan a few times in my past (future life?), I knew the technique would hardly endanger my life, but it'd be far more efficient and pleasant to dodge.

I skirted backwards and Jiriaya pressed the advantage, constantly moving towards me with fast jabs of his rasengan filled arm. He was trying to herd me out of town, and although I certainly wouldn't have in my past life, I obliged, cheekingly smiling as I my arms at my sides, making no effort to engage beyond the constant backwards shuffle away from his Rasaengan. Jiriaya the gallant, trying to protect the civilians.

We played the ninja-fast game of tag for nearly 30 seconds before we were well clear of any buildings, Jiriaya dropping his rasengan technique and stopping and staring at me. He brought his hands together subtly and took a ready stance, jumping back to a range he felt comfortable to dodge from if I counter-attacked.

He spoke up, his voice holding a serious authority that reminded me of sensei than my foolish teammate

"I was pretty sure only one of my old teammates had titties. Did you get them recently?"

Fishing for knowledge?

No. He was stalling, I could see his hands were still clasped together, he was likely gathering sage chakra. Although I had never fought his sage mode myself, I had acquired a basic understanding of his technique over time. Unable to gather sage chakra effectively while fighting, he'd wore sage toads like nature-chakra batteries. It was an ingenious technique, one I'd tried to replicate with my snakes, but it was a failed endeavor because there were no small snakes capable of sage mode.

I only knew two snakes who were capable of sage chakra, one who would refuse to work with me and the other far too large to carry.

It was probably one of the only things I was jealous of Jiriaya in, the ease at which he had mastered sage mode, and been able to use it in combat. It'd taken me till I was 60 before my chakra had been potent enough to use sage mode, and I still only had the inefficient technique of my cursed seals to draw upon sage chakra for in-combat use.

I'd redesigned the cursed seal in the future and was wearing my own future handiwork. My original cursed seal extended Juugo's power into the user, an explosion that was half-rapid senjutsu intake and half-monstrous mutation.

The technique was the closest thing I had known of to provide my minions with the promise of senjtusu power without requiring that they actually have any mastery of sage mode. As much as Juugo was terrified of his own technique, terrified of the monster that he and his cursed subjects become, he didn't understand how amazingly safe the technique was: any other method of simply infusing sage chakra into a random person would turn them into stone.

Juugo had tried to have children in my future after I had designed him his control-seal. Unfortunately one of them had been born still, a child of stone. Upon inspection I realized what had happened: The baby had inherited only half of juugo's bloodline, the ability to absorb sage chakra.

The other half, the half which mitigated the dangers of sage-chakra by forcing the excess sage chakra into physical manifestations, the "monstrous" transformations as Juugo liked to call it, was what allowed him to live, and what allowed me to grant even the most basic power of sage-chakra to those who had no knowledge of how to properly use it.

Probably the most significant innovation of Kabuto was his evolving utilization of Juugo's technique to create an endless sage mode. From what I understood, he had maintained sage mode endlessly during the fourth shinobi war, and I had adapted the technique from him for my own use once I had finally been strong enough to enter sage mode myself. Senjutsu users didn't need to have uncontrolled manifestations, to have excess sage chakra pushed into monstrous forms. With the right level of mental discipline, sage mode could be maintained permanently with Juugo's abilities.

I for one didn't personally enjoy spending much time in Sage mode except during battle. The ability to read Auras, the enhanced strength, chakra potency and capacity were all amazing, but the mental concentration of constantly balancing one's chakra did not align with the idea of relaxation.

I had been enjoying my time in the baths before I was interrupted.

I quickly activated the modified cursed seal I had on my shoulder, the one that allowed the rapid absorption of sage chakra. Jiriaya's technique had its benefits and was an ingenious solution to the lack of a similar shortcut. Furthermore, when he fought in his sage mode, he fought with 3 minds, 3 sets of eyes. If you slipped past Jiriaya's defenses, chances are you would still be caught and stopped by one of the deformed toads.

Knowing I needed to stop Jiriaya from summoning his toads and wanting to impress him with my newfound power, I allow my chakra to explode out of me and sink into the Hashirama tree all around us, infusing the trees with my chakra. Jiriaya seemed confused as to what I was doing, pouring large amounts of chakra into the trees, confusion which quickly turned into shock as the tree he was standing on immediately sprouted dozens of thick limbs of wood that wrapped around him, pried his hands apart and immobilized him against him against the tree.

The only thing more amazing than being a wood-jutsu user was being a wood-jutsu user in Konoha's Hashirama-tree forest.

The man had clearly placed the trees with the intention that his progeny would be able to use them to extend the efficacy of wood-release techniques. Unfortunate none of his progeny manifested the release, and even more unfortunate Konoha had suppressed my research into restoring it.

Jiriaya struggled against the wood release, but the jutsu was already absorbing the chakra he was using to try and augment his strength. Did he really think he'd be able to escape a technique designed to restrain jinchuuriki with brute strength?

I let a large Cheshire grin grace my face as I strolled up to him, lazily inspecting my nails. I allowed a wooden pillar to slowly rise me above Jiriaya's prison, his eyes level with my chest, as I stared down at him inspecting my nails. I was suddenly filled with a desire to be regal, to be thought of as a Queen, judging prisoners for their execution.

My joy was only enhanced by the terror I could see in Jiriaya's face, feel in his aura from the lingering sage-mode I was still in. There was determination, confusion, resignation and sorrow, but still terror. There was no high like taking a powerful man and making him utterly terrified, thinking he was going to die at your whim.

I laughed, leaned down to stare Jiriaya directly in the eyes. He could see the faint sage mode in my eyes, the weird coloration effect that prolonged my already snake-like slits.

"I did get them recently. Do you like them?" My voice was a velvety purr, and I cupped my breast as I brought it back to his eye level. I gauged his reaction through his aura, and there was a burst of disgust as he watched me fondle my own breasts. Not even a hint of arousal.

What a shame.

I tried to assuage my only slightly offended feelings (My new body was smoking hot, for sake) with the thought that he probably didn't like women who were more powerful than him, and I immediately ignored the counter-argument I supplied of his fascination with Tsunade.

I was not into Jiriaya, but a bit of validation would've been nice.

At that point, I poured a bit more chakra into the wood-release technique, making sure it would hold him for hopefully a few hours.

I leaned down, patted him on his forehead, and strolled away.

I had two goals in mind when I infiltrated Konoha the day before the Chuunin exams. First, I contacted my spies and informed them that the invasion was off, and they were to resume normal operations. Most of my spies in Konoha were quite irrelevant, especially given my knowledge of the future and my declining interest in Konoha affairs. Nonetheless, a Konoha which I had never invaded, a Sarutobi-sensei which I didn't kill would make different choices, and it was hardly worth it to simply abandon the spy network.

Kabuto was the only spy I actually cared about, his skill and cunning proving themselves when he later in life became an S-rank ninja capable of impacting world events.

I had become pen-pals with the Kabuto that emerged from Itachi's Izanami, where he kept care over Konoha's orphanage. The man I had known had been fundamentally changed by the technique. He had become soft and obsessed with fulfilling his mother's legacy. How the only student I had ever taken who had truly understood my nindo, who had truly appreciated the beauty of science and genetics, would abandon it all to idle around with children for decades was ridiculous.

This Kabuto I would never let near Itachi, this Kabuto I would give the world and watch as he plays with it. He had taken my techniques and pushed them to new extremes, and this time my knowledge of the future would be the shortcut to accelerating his development even faster. Although I had enjoyed Karin as a student after the fourth shinobi war, she didn't have the same zeal. She was a scientist, but as a fiction book had once explained to me, she wasn't a mad one.

I found Kabuto, explained to him that the invasion was over, and instructed him to head back to Oto. He had been a bit amiss at the sudden change of plans, but he nonetheless accepted without argument. I trusted him to get out.

The second thing I did in the village was visit the Naka Shrine. Luckily secluded away in the Uchiha's district, it was easy enough to get into the shrine room. There were priceless Uchiha records in the room, records which I gladly collected and sealed away in a scroll. Although most of it was irrelevant information, I knew that in 20 years there had been poor public accounting of large quantities of clan information. My real reason for visiting was the Uchiha tablet however, the great stone which informed of the Mangekyo Sharingan and told a false tale of Kaguya's signature technique. I knew what the tablet said, translated for me by Sasuke Uchiha in the future, and I knew that it in itself was an issue.

I had a goal per se, to prevent the resurrection of Kaguya. The fourth Shinobi War had been a disastrous affair where thousands of Shinobi had died, and multiple villages were literally destroyed. I knew that there were 4 primary concerns regarding the fourth shinobi war: Obito, Madara, Nagato and Zetsu.

Madara had been such a big issue because his partial resurrection by Kabuto, an event which I would surely be able to prevent this time around. Nagato and Obito were only barely attached to the plan anyways, and with a bit of undermining would ideally fail in their goals.

There were two keys to reviving Kaguya, a rinnengan and the Juubi. Zetsu had spent a thousand years manipulating the Shinobi world to create a rinnengan, and once he had done so, within a few decades he had managed to revive the Juubi.

I had been forming plans to ideally destroy Madara's rinnengan (which had been placed in Nagato), but I was deeply concerned over the ability of more Rinnengan to form. Part of me simply wanted to proceed with kidnapping Sasuke, lock him up in a chamber underground, wait for Itachi to croak of old age, and then kill Sasuke and burn both their corpses so the Sharingan would hopefully never be allowed to exist.

But I knew if I were Zetsu I wouldn't let that stop me. I'd already have a stockpile of Sharingan, already have genetic material stockpiled from the Uchiha so they could possibly be revived if they went extinct. If anything, it was possible that Zetsu could force or manipulate Obito into having hundreds of new children, who were all kept underground and forced into a bloody training system designed to provoke the Sharingan, and then eventually result in the trauma of the Mangekyo. And a fortunate side effect of them all being Obito's children would be that they'd be all brothers, so any pair with a mangekyo sharingan was already an eternal ready to be coaxed into the rinnengan.

I may or may not have planned to do something similar at one point.

Regardless, killing Sasuke in the hopes of mitigating Zetsu's backup plans would only fail to wipe out the Uchiha. Ultimately Sasuke's strength, although not enough to save the world in the end, would be invaluable in that fight.

I didn't actually care for the shrine, but rather what I knew I'd be able to find around the shrine. In my sage mode I could sense them, a few white zetsu spores scattered around the shrine, likely waiting to report back on any progress Sasuke makes with his Sharingan.

With lightning speed, I launch tendrils of wood that spear into the white zetsu spores, surrounding them and pumping them with natural chakra, forcing the white zetsu's inside to materialize. They tried escaping, but the wood release held them still, and I slowly sealed the zetsu clones away into a second storage seal I had brought.

One of the most valuable aspects of zetsu clones was that they weren't actually clones. They were people who had been modified into slaves of Kaguya via her infinite moon technique long ago, and thus they still had humun souls, trapped inside the white zetsu bodies. Human souls which could be used for sacrifice, just as Kabuto did when he mass slaughtered them to raise his army of the undead. I intended to build a collection of Zetsu clones, sealed away and usable as sacrifices on-demand, if I ever needed to perform impure world resurrection in a hurry.

Please leave a review if you enjoyed this chapter! Thanks


	4. Chapter 4

AN: An inspirational fanfiction writer once told me that fanfiction is for the author. There's no money, no glory, having thousands of reviews is hardly different than a handful. I hope you enjoy my story :)

Warning: This chapter definitely deserves its MA rating. Direct reference to breasts and Orochimaru's techniques in maintaining hers, as well as an implied lemon at the end, with questionable consent. I don't actually write out the lemon, but it's definitely implied. Also cursing.

! _ #

The device that saved the world was a video camera.

When Momoshiki Otsutsuki appeared in Konoha and cast the infinite illusion upon the moon, I had been caught by surprise. For all the amazingness of the technique, it didn't have an infinite range, but it did work fast. He lay waste to Konoha within hours, absorbing the entire cities chakra within himself and moving on to other locations to continue his absorption of the world's chakra.

It was only by the virtue of a video camera feed that I had been saved from the technique myself. I had been communicating with a scientist from Konoha's hospital about the possibility of using genetic screening to identify disease risk factors when suddenly his eyes glossed over and the rinnengan glowed in them. The technique was confirmed when a white spear had shot up into my associates back and begun absorbing him.

After that, I only had a few minutes to mentally prepare myself. Sasuke had informed me prior that he and Naruto were going to confront an Otsutsuki clan member who was headed for the world, apparently a relative of the late Kaguya. The destruction of Konoha was a sign they had failed, and with their failure I knew the world was probably doomed. Escaping it had been the right decision, and it was only the forewarning from the video camera that had given me the opportunity to rewind time.

I was holed up in the darkest deepest chamber of my laboratory, the first time I had made it back to Oto since my return in time. Not bothering to deal with the headache of revealing my newfound sex change to my shinobi, I slid past them wearing a deep robe that made my body seem amorphous, informing them to prepare a cursed seal victim, one of the unfortunate souls who I had branded with variations of the cursed seal in hopes of improving it, and bring him to my private laboratory. After that, I was not to be disturbed.

I knew I had to act quickly on restoring Kimimaro to health, placing him on a immune-suppressant medication regiment to counteract the effects of MPA. I resolved to begin working on preparing the medication the moment I was done with my next task.

I hadn't prepare per-se for a trek through time, but I had prepared for an unforeseen event of war. I had been quite worried Naruto or Sasuke would seek to end me for some slight or another, and I would be forced to flee very rapidly and be prepared to defend myself. As a result, I had prepared a "getaway bag", a bag full of storage seals containing tools I'd find useful if I was forced to defend myself on the run. In addition to money and vials of Karin's blood, it contained a large reservoir of DNA samples I or Kabuto had collected over the years.

Part of my peace treaty with Konoha was that I wouldn't cast the Edo Tensei, and it was part of the reason that the wood user Yamato had always been my "minder" after the war, he had developed a sensory technique that would allow him to detect if I cast it.

The plan had been if Konoha had ever turned on me, I no longer had any reason to avoid the Edo tensei, and I'd use the technique liberally to try and preserve my life. Although Konoha hadn't directly turned on me, it had failed me, and I was free to use the technique again. I'd read Kabuto's notes on the jutsu and was certain I could cast it in the perfect form that he had during the 4th Shinobi war, augmented with my sage chakra and Senju wood release.

A test was in order however. I was sure that it would fail, but I simply didn't know anything about how the pure world worked.

I pulled out the DNA reservoir I had stored, and found a small sample of blonde hair labeled cleanly with the words "Senju Tsunade".

I pulled the sleeping man who was bound by the door onto a table, and I began the process of using the technique. Eventually he was screaming in pain as the seals pushed into his skin, eroding his body into ash and reshaping it into the shape of Tsunade, the aged women who had spent time as the Godaime Hokage.

I was shocked. And fucking delighted.

All sorts of calculations flew through my head, the knowledge that I could revive people from the future. An alternate timeline. The implications also swamped me, my mind flittering through the implications. Was I in an alternate dimension? Was there an unlimited number of pure worlds? How could I have revived Tsunade Senju, the implication being that her soul was in the pure world, when I knew she was still alive at this time in the past? I had been hopeful that my DNA reservoir could be used to resurrect people as they died, not that it would allow me to revive the souls of those from a different dimension, my original timeline.

Another implication struck me, the possibility of duplicate revivals, and I immediately flew through to the other side of my laboratory, pulling into a drawer of DNA that I knew I already had. Labeled cleanly was a supply of the Nidaime Hokage's blood from this timeline, a copy I had not brought into the past with me. An identical sample I knew would be in the DNA catalog I had brought with me.

I stormed upstairs, leaving the revived Tsunade inactive, and quickly found one of the bumbling chuunin who I couldn't remember. Probably had died in original Konoha invasion. A lot of the Oto shinobi had.

I instructed him to follow me, and I led him terrified into the prison in which I had kept the inmates who had survived experimentation with my cursed seal. They were a worthless bunch, the majority of them dying when I had either held a tournament to find a replacement body, or when I had sent Sasuke to kill those who had participated in a prison break.

Their lives had already been forfeit in the original timeline, and I felt no qualms about killing them again. I subdued a dozen of them with snakes that I quickly summoned, paralytic poisons and the snakes forming restraints within themselves. Nothing that would stop a real ninja, but enough to subdue the mindless brutes.

I told the terrified chuunin to transport the other 10 to a hallway outside of my chambers in case I needed them, and I grabbed the two closest to me and dragged them behind me as I made my way back to my private laboratory, dragging the soon to be corpses behind me.

I performed the technique again, this time the screaming more quaint as the sacrifices were both paralyzed and thus unable to scream out as their entire bodies morphed against their will, foreign chakra bleeding through them and remaking them entirely. I was in sage mode to ensure the technique went smoothly, and I could feel the intense pain and terror their auras went through as they were remade, their pain, desperation, terror and hate. This was why I didn't like sage mode, feeling the emotions of victims was a buzzkill.

Ultimately though it subsided as the technique finished, and I had standing before me the corpses of two Nidaime Hokages. I activated both of them at once, and both of them opened their eyes.

They stared at me for a few seconds before they turned and looked at each other, confusion radiating off of them. One of the Nidaime's, the one who had been revived from the sample I had brought from the future, showed recognition as he looked at me, and had far more anger and tension in his aura than the Nidaime who had never experienced resurrection.

I immediately deactivated both of them, my suspicions confirmed for the moment. They really had separate souls, and with the blood from the future, I could summon souls from what I know could only assume was an alternate dimension that my future resided in.

I created coffins made out of wood to hold the two nidaimes, and I sent their deactivated corpses underground to await any use I might have of them.

The reincarnation jutsu was ridiculously powerful. A shame I only had use of the technique briefly before Sensei had sealed my arms away, and only briefly again after regaining my arms before Konoha and the Shinobi Alliance had banned the technique. They should've seen the use it had during the 4th shinobi war. The ability to resurrect nearly any shinobi, complete with almost all of their power and knowledge, in a form that was easily controlled, could be used in-mass, and each resurrected minion with infinite chakra and unable to die from normal injury? It was incredible. The shinobi alliance feared the technique, they feared the power it had been shown to have during the fourth shinobi war.

Why they would take the ultimate shinobi technique, a technique powerful enough to allow one shinobi (kabuto) to resurrect men who had been known as gods and use them as his pawns, to wage war on the entire shinobi world at once, was idiotic. They could've used the technique to conquer the world. Hell, they could've used the technique to save lives. Rather than sending their own ninja on missions where they risked death, they could've sent reincarnated shinobi to fight instead. Sure you had to make a sacrifice to perform the technique, but what was the death of a random criminal, a rapist, a murderer who was already convicted to life in prison, against saving the lives of a soldier?

They had been bloody idiots, and it had cost them. I wouldn't make their mistake, and I certainly wouldn't let myself fall into a situation where I was unable to perform the technique.

I had 20 years before Momoshiki Otsutsuki finally arrived in the world, and I'd make sure it was much better prepared.

! ) ! ! (

Staring at Tsunade's corpse, I marveled at her appearance. She was free of the genjutsu she usually wore to conceal her advanced age, but one of the remarkable aspects of the Edo Tensei was that it could revive ninja to their physical prime.

While Tsunade hadn't lived up to her potential, she had been the brightest medical ninja in the history of the world. Perhaps with a few extra decades experience Saukra Haruno may have surpassed her, but the girl had the benefit of inheriting a half-century of medical achivements and scientific knowledge that Tsunade and her generation had already accomplished.

I had never really gotten close to the girl Sakura, she had generally avoided communicating with me, and when she needed my genetic expertise she either delegated a more practical shinobi to communicate with me, or she reached out to Karin.

Tsunade though… She had taken to basic communication with me after the war, we had traded short letters about once a month. We discussed pleasant things, made references to books we had read, commented on world news. She had never forgiven me enough to embrace me again as a friend, but after all she had lost in the world, I suppose she was wiling to at least maintain dialogue with one of the few people left she had ever gotten close to.

I'd attended her funeral, the first time I'd actually visited Konoha after the war. Kakashi, Hokage at the time, had what seemed like a legion of Anbu tailing me throughout my visit. It had been a first step however, and I had begun visiting Konoha with more frequency afterwards.

~ # ~

I activated the edo tensei technique, allowing Tsunade to animate and assume consciousness. Light filtered into her eyes, and I saw her slowly gain the recognition of consciousness.

She stared at me for a few moments, a seemingly calculated glare. I simply stood across from her, waiting for her to make the first statement. I had posed my body leaning against a table, accenting my serpentine curves as I looked upon her with my best predatory grin.

I barely had time to react as she dashed forward, a pinpoint bead of chakra forming in her fist as she barreled it towards my skull. I tried to dodge to the left but she still managed to hit me in the neck, shattering it and sending me flying across my laboratory, the table and machinery in the way barely breaking me as I slammed into the stone wall at the back of the laboratory.

I had barely enough time to heal the broken neck before she was at me again, fist uppercutting directly into my chest as she concaved my body and shattered the stone behind me, sending a deep quake throughout the base.

This time, I took the half-second I had before her next fist came at me to deactivate the technique, the vengeful she-beast had been about to strike my skull with one of her punches. Although I could probably survive having my skull crushed, I'd have to abandon my body and revert into my white snake form, and I did NOT want to do that.

I stared at the first that was a centimeter from my face, as I slowly restored my heart and chest to function. The punch had literally ripped through my breast, shattered my chest bone, and squashed my heart.

This was the kind of shit I had gone into immortality for.

The regeneration ability I had from my Hashirama Senju cells kicked in, restoring my body to a healthy condition, but I noticed that it hadn't repaired my chest. Fuck.

I quickly moved to the mirror and tried sculpting my breasts back into the pleasant shape I had designed for them. As I worked, I cursed the demented she-demon bitch. I had been hoping to fucking talk to her, and her first move was to try and kill me?

I had even been nice, giving her control of herself. Shows how Konoha fucking repays me for what I do for them. Invent the field of genetics? Snore. Serve through a world war, spending decades as one of their best shinobi? Meh. Revive the Hashirama bloodline from extinction, promising to help bring about Konoha's glory? Oh, let's skill the snake traitor. Gosh dang hypocritical pieces of shit, I remembered why I'd been so set on revenge against the power-hating transphobic city that had only hated me for what I was willing to do for its own benefit.

I finished restoring my breasts, the smooth and plump pale skin returned to a pleasant roundness. It sucked like hell that most of my rejuvenation techniques didn't consider my breasts apart of me, and didn't heal them properly.

Before I let my rage at my own body, Tsunade, and Konoha convince me to raise an army of the dead kage to burn the village to the ground, I left the lab with the unconscious Tsunade standing in it. I needed to vent some steam if I was going to have a conversation with my old teammate.

~ ! ~

None of them were a good enough challenge. I had stormed into cursed-seal prison, gone up to the largest and strongest looking one, ripped his cage door off, and gave him a burst of my KI.

He was too far gone into the mindless rage to truly understand the terror he should have felt, and had immediately tried to crush me with monstrous appendages that had been formed out of sage chakra.

He had taken only a second to defeat, a backhanded sage-powered smack crushing his head as it propelled him against the stone wall. They weren't strong enough to be any fun, strong enough to be any fun. I didn't want to simply kill the weak shinobi in my care and I had enough control over my rage to stop me from hunting down the Shinobi I knew could handle a beating like Kabuto and giving him one. He cosmically deserved it for his total abandonment of science in the future, but I knew it'd hardly engender his loyalty this time around if I used him as a regenerating punching bag.

I summoned the Nidaime Hokage, the one from my original timeline, the future, into the large chamber. I gave him primary control of himself, and I dashed forward, summoning the Kusunagi into my hand as I closed in.

To his credit, the Nidaime adjusted quickly to the surprising situation I had thrust in him, quickly dashing aside and dodging a bisecting slice from the Kusunagi. I had my sage mode activated to the fullest extreme and I had swung the sword with enough force it had pierced through the stone ground and gone into the hilt. As I begun to pull the sword out of the ground, I felt a surge of chakra behind me as the Nidaime formed a water dragon out of thin air and sent it barreling towards me. I dodged to the side and brought up wooden pillars from in the ground to pierce through and dissipate the dragon, and I saw Tobirama rush forward and pull my Kusunagi from the ground, turning on me.

This was more like it.

I summoned my second Kusunagi sword, and rushed forward in a dive like a viper, the second Hokage meeting my blade with his own, the clash of the two all-cutting swords sending a sharp and horrifying screech through the chamber. We traded sword blows for a moment, his speed slightly better than mine but my sage-enhanced strength superior, each clash of the swords a sharp ring. It was exhilarating to have an actual sword fight, usually the Kusunagi couldn't be used like this as it would slice through any normal steel sword.

During our sword fight, I noticed Tobirama subtly form an explosive seal I recognized as his endlessy-replicating explosive seal kamikaze technique. That wouldn't do.

If he was going to cheat in the sword fight, so would I, and as I slashed at him with an exceptionally forceful stroke, both his legs bracing to stop the blow, I summoned a massive pillar of wood from the ground to slam into him, sending him careening upwards and smashing through the ceiling.

I dashed upwards, and into the dusky light of the moonlight outside, to be met with a giant wave of water slicing through my wooden pillar and crashing into me, filling the outside with a giant reserve of water. I couldn't see in the darkness of the water but with Sage mode I could detect the location of Tobirama, moving through the water towards me with a grace of a shark.

I flashed through handseals and giant earthen spears begun to pierce through the water, Tobirama expertly dodging but being kept at bay. I allowed my body to take on a serpentine grace as I swam through the water to dry ground and I looked up to see a giant ball of water where Tobirama stood. Amazing, the amount of power to summon that much water was incredible. Already I could see other Oto shinobi approaching the Nidaime and firing techniques against him, trying to subdue him. He turned his attention away from me briefly, and I watched as he ripped through the Chuunin Oto shinobi. He had never fought with the blade of Kusunagi, but he already used it with grace, slicing through the shinobi who came up to him.

I probably should've been bothered that he was killing my ninja, but it was an amazing, almost erotic dance he performed, the merciless slaughter, the raw power.

Erotic? I looked at the Nidaime as he executed more of my Shinobi and I realized that yes, he was a startlingly attractive man. Too bad I couldn't have him.

A thought formed in my head, a dirty and horrifying thought. I could have him.

I quickly ran through a handseal and deactivated Tobirama Senju, a coffin rising up and his body fell slack, the coffin transporting him back to my personal laboratory.

I moved there myself, and summoned Tobirama Senju, his body soaking wet and his abs glistening. I was wet myself, and at that moment I realized I was still half-naked from when Tsuande had crushed through my chest. I usually left my breasts rigid with chakra to avoid having to wear a bra, but I loosened them and allowed them to take on a natural texture. One of the few benefits of making one's own breasts, that they were easily alterable.

I stared at him, and pondered what I was contemplating doing. Would it even work? Could reanimated corpses have sex? I would presume so, given they regained complex kekkai genkai that resolved on biological structure, but I had never tested it. My eyes twinkled with a mixture of scientific curiosity and lust. I had only had sex once since I had transitioned, a common man who hadn't really known what I represented. He hadn't been my type, powerful men were my type, but I had never gotten around to pursuing anyone. Not like anyone would have wanted me, the evil snake-sannin, the transgender freak, let alone trusted me enough.

I eyed Tobirama contemplatively, before another thought struck me. I had two of him. A sinister grin broke across my features as I cleared the examination table and summoned the second Tobirama.

This was an experiment. A totally justified experiment. Right?

~ _ ~ _ ~ #

Hope you enjoyed the chapter! \\\ I know canonically Tsunade is actually still alive during the Boruto era, but that seemed mainly to have fanservice of the old kage meeting. Plot wise she should've been nearly 80 and had sacrificed parts of her lifespan to her regeneration technique.

And hopefully this chapter reminded everyone that Orochimaru is NOT what we would traditionally consider a good character. She may be bent on saving the world, but that's only cause she's in it. The Orochimaru of this story is still the same sociopathic asshole from canon who killed hundreds for science, tried to destroy an entire village out of revenge, and went about kidnapping children to steal their bodies for herself.


	5. Chapter 5

AN: Thanks for all the reviews! Hong Kong weather is still so hot. Can't wait till I go back to Tennessee. Tried to get some more dialogue in this chapter, I've noticed in previous chapters I shied away from dialogue.

I want to raise a point about my story: This story is AU in the sense that Momoshiki DID defeat Naruto and Sasuke. Obviously that didn't happen in the story, and as a result, you can assume the Momoshiki of my story is more powerful than Momoshiki of canon.

~ ( #

One of the benefits of nearly endless regenerative powers and the ability to easily recover from crushed organs or bones was that there was absolutely no limit on how rough I could have my sex. The lab table had been crushed underneath me and the sounds had solicited the concerned nosiness of one of my Shinobi, a mistake he would not recover from. After I had finally finished my fun, I sent both of the two Tobirama's back into coffins and underground. I didn't want to be reminded of what had just happened.

My amorphous robes that I had worn when entering the lab, ruined from my earlier scuffle with Tsunade, had been discarded, and I unsealed the beautiful silver with purple lining robe I had gotten made from the clothing shop. It was a silver color, with bold purple lines accenting the neck and coming down the divide, with slivers of purple branching out across the robes in mildly floral swirls.

I examined myself in the mirror, making sure I restored any cosmetic damage the experience with the Tobirama's had brought about, and donned the silver robe over my form. I smiled at myself in the mirror, noticing how my slightly disheveled hair made me look more wild than normal. It was kinda sexy.

I quickly squashed the thought that filtered across my mind about how I wasn't sexy, that no man would want me, that I had to resort to mind controlling reincarnated corpses.

One of the things Konoha had taught me was compartmentalizing, and I shoved all those thoughts deep down, to be locked away with all the other thoughts I had over time.

I briefly considered though the direct implications of what I had done. When I had constructed my female body, I had specifically replicated female organs with their proper hormone-producing function. In the past I had never had such a strong desire to be fucked, and I was honestly worried that the female hormones were effecting me adversely. I'd known I've been attracted to men since a very young age, but sex itself never really appealed to me. Since adjusting to my new body however, I had been thinking about it far too often, and the increased thoughts about sex brought about the uncomfortable and very unwanted thoughts about my ability to actually elicit sexual desire from others.

I resolved myself to examining my hormone levels later, and looking into possibly tweaking them.

I entertained the thought of journaling the experience, my practice of maintaining notes on scientific discoveries a habit I had been quite fond of. I knew it would be pointless however, I hadn't exactly taken measurements, nor did I even have up to date records on what I knew about the Edo Tensei that I could add my observations to.

I had 20 years of scientific knowledge of in which I didn't have notes for, no records of. It was a bit irksome because some of the knowledge was worthless without exact results, like the experiments I had done comparing the chemical and biological structure of wood produced by the wood release of the various shinobi who ended up with the technique over the years.

I turned to the Tsunade corpse, she had remained deactivated next to the wall during my entire experience with Tobirama.

I will admit, my efforts to alleviate steam had payed off. I was much calmer than I had been earlier.

I summoned wood tendrils which wrapped around Tsunade and formed a set of restraints, and I activated her consciousness, pushing the Senju chakra into the bond and restraining her as I had done with Tobirama all the years ago.

I realized I didn't have a table to lean on as I talked to her, so I summoned up and formed a stump of wood to sit on. A chair would've been nicer, but I'd honestly not gotten a lot of practice with more crafts-y uses of the wood release. Most of my practice with it had resolved around replicating Hashirama's brute-strength style of using massive sage-chakra augmented attacks, I had almost no experience with the more careful construction Yamato had specialized in during his later years.

One of the benefits of Yamato being the watcher Konoha had set upon me was that he was a good-hearted man who was willing to discuss with me the wood release, and use it for civilian construction. I had rebuilt Oto into a proper Shinobi village in the future, a lot of that construction and furniture had been done by a Yamato who had been suckered into helping. He had been paid of course, but he had some moral issue with taking money from the village he was employed by Konoha to be supervising, and he had redirected the offered income to "charity". Fucking idiot. I was going to spend money on an orphanage anyways, simply letting him have the credit for it had been a steal for his services.

Regardless, no Yamato chairs for me, and thus I awkwardly sat on a stump of wood as I contemplated Tsunade. She was fully immobilized, unable to speak, and although I had deactivated sage mode during the sex, I could see on her face she was in a deep seat of rage.

"Tsunade, Tsunade, that'd been awfully rude of you to punch me without even waiting for an explanation, you hurt my feelings just punching an old teammate like that"

"I'd just been wanting to have a talk with a dear old friend of mine"

She stared at me in anger, and I released the hold on her hopefully just enough to let her talk. Even if she a smidgen of other movement, the wood release would hold her.

She stared at me, and rather than speaking, tried to spit at me. It was a pitiful effort though, as the spit landed on the ground an entire foot away. Hard to really launch a ball of spit when you couldn't arch your neck.

"Why you've simply lost everything resembling manners. Did I do the technique wrong, are you just a drooling punching brain-dead moron?"

"You're an evil fucking bastard Orochimaru", she finally spoke. Her voice had a youthful pitch to it, the youthfulness I remembered during my time as her teammate but the one thing she had lacked in her aging disguise as a Hokage.

"And why would that be?" I plastered a very curious face on my look, and tiled my head almost as if the very thought that I had done something evil was confusing.

"I'm not going to fucking play your games. When Konoha learns you're reviving people again, disgracing the dead, they'll come after you. And you know Naruto and Sasuke are stronger than you, you will lose, and you will die" She had a look of determined triumph. How charming.

"Well then Tsunade, I regret to inform you that Konoha was destroyed, Naruto and Sasuke are dead, and I'm reviving you in the hopes I can work with you to prevent the entire world from being destroyed."

Her entire face grew slack with confusion and contemplation.

"Prove it you bastard, if what you're saying is really true" She had lost some of her anger, but still seemed thoroughly pissed off. Defensive distrust?

"Well given I don't exactly walk around with proof that Konoha was destroyed in front of me, please just entertain me and pretend that what I'm saying is true. Maybe later I can take you out for a walk and show you what I'm talking about" I chuckled at the image of me literally taking Tsunade on a walk like she was my pet, but she seemed to miss the implication and took on a look of contemplation.

"I'd have hoped that 20 years of peace and my instrumental-" I really stressed the word "assistance in the war would've at least earned me the benefit of the doubt." I'm sure she clearly remembered when I had come out of nowhere, directly saved her life and changed the events of the war.

"If you were hypothetically telling the truth, then can you tell me how Konoha was destroyed?"

And I did so. I relayed to her the events of her death, how Naruto had become Hokage after Kakashi, and how Momomchi Otsutsuki had made his way to Konoha, a ninja who apparently held the same powers of Kaguya, but even more chakra as he held the entire chakra of multiple worlds. I told her how I learned that Sasuke and Naurto had deployed to confront Momochi before he arrived on Earth, and how I could only assume they failed as Momochi Otsutsuki had arrived in Konoha and proceeded to destroy it with the infinite Tsukuyomi.

"Wait. Kaguya's infinite Tsukuyomi had enveloped the entire world. It doesn't make sense that this Momochi would only be able to cover Konoha"

A valid point, but I had already pondered that detail.

"I don't know the exact range of his technique, it may have covered all of Hi no Kuni, I simply know it didn't extend to Oto. A reasonable hypothesis may be that Momochi was casting some variation of the technique that sacrificed range for speed, Konoha had been absorbed quite quickly. Maybe it had to do with him not having actually revived a world tree but seemingly casting the technique from himself."

She nodded, and mused for a moment.

"If he is casting the world tree technique then we may have very little time before he moves here. What is the plan?"

I laughed, and relayed to her the events of my time travel, and my discovery of my ability to revive her. To further show her proof, I brought out both Tobirama's. I even brought Kabuto into the room, the boy knew about Edo Tensei and seemed surprised that I had killed Tsunade without his knowledge, but I shooed him out of the room without an explanation. I'd probably explain the situation later.

After I finished explaining the events that had led up to the present, I slowly relaxed the control over her movements and even conjured a stool for her to sit on.

"So you're in the past now… What are your plans?"

"Well Tsunade, I honestly don't have any. I've barely been in this world for a few days. I've been musing about the possibility of training up Sasuke and Naruto better, their status as reincarnations of Indra and Asura make them candidates for extreme power. I've also been thinking that I could use Edo Tensei to possibly combat them, much like the four hokages had helped in the defeat of Kaguya. I have recently been sidetracked by the knowledge that the Edo Tensei apparently transcends space and time, and I've not yet determined to what extent I can use that to my benefit"

I honestly didn't have much plans. I usually spent weeks or months forming plans, and I'd only just saw the destruction of Konoha and traveled to the past 4 days ago/20 years from now.

"You realize it's amoral to summon them with the Edo Tensei" She gave me a serious look, like simply telling me that would convince me to not utilize the Edo Tensei.

"Don't give me that shit. It's probably the most powerful technique in existence and in itself is a miracle. Kaguya had a somewhat right idea in preparing the world against Momochi's invasion: human souls have the ability to create spiritual chakra and thus a world where chakra is divided among herself and an army of white zetu would be stronger than a world where she was the only one with chakra. A world where an army of Edo Tensei soldiers remain to fight Momochi? Even superior."

She stared at me blankly.

"Regardless of your claim, human souls are meant to rest in the pure world after death"

This bullshit.

"And how is that working out for you dear? Do you remember any of the afterlife? Is the pure world anything but endless oblivion?"

She stared at me for a few moments.

"At the very least, let's put that aside for the moment. Maybe Edo Tensei is amoral, but it was instrumental in defeating Kaguya and it'll be probably be instrumental in any plan that could defeat Momochi, who apparently is far more powerful than Kaguya was."

She continued to stare at me.

She spoke again "So if we're in the past, what exactly is the timeline?"

"Today is the day I originally invaded Konoha. If it wasn't obvious, I'm no longer interested in such petty revenge. Especially given, if the alternate dimension theory is true, I've already had my revenge and this isn't technically the Konoha that so spited me."

She sighed at my proclamation and gave me a tired look.

"And what exactly do you think I can do to help?"

I contemplated that question for a moment. I'd honestly revived Tsunade so she could heal Kimimaro for me. While I may be able to treat his MPA, Tsunade would be far more efficient at it and could likely directly resolve the disease rather than mitigating the symptoms with immunosuppressants.

I'd also wanted someone to talk to, someone who would understand the credit I deserved. By rewinding time, I was the world's savior. I hadn't decided yet if I would tell anyone I was from the future, and even then they'd likely not believe me, or fail to credit me with my "change of heart" that had put me in somewhat-ok graces with the Shinobi world during the 4th shinobi war.

As a long-term strategic asset however, a reincarnated Tsunade from the future would be incredible. She was an S-Rank shinobi, master healer, accomplished Hokage. The very thought was addicting. This is what I had always planned on, before Hiruzen had ruined it with his stupid death-god seal that prevented me from using the Edo Tensei. Only the beginning of what Kabuto had realized.

"I.. Have some shinobi who could benefit from medical expertise atm. In the long-term however, if you're willing to stay summoned, you'd be of extreme use. I plan on augmenting the world. Making it stronger, so it can better resist the Otsutsuki."

I didn't really plan on letting her have the final say in if she stayed summoned, I was already resolved that I would use her. However, she'd be a more effective tool if it was willing one.

She sat on the wooden stump for a few minutes in thought, before she finally made her statement

"I accept, however I have some terms if you want my help."

Terms. Ha. The very nature of Edo Tensei was that I was the one in complete control.

"And what are these terms?" I drawled

She looked at me seriously and stated "First, I want you to agree to not be an enemy of Konoha. Even if I'm no longer the Hokage, the village is still my first priority, and I will not assist you with anything if it indirectly or directly harms my village."

"Second, I want executive authority over when I can release this technique. If I want to pass back to the pure world, I believe my work is done, or that the prolonged Edo Tensei is somehow causing unintended negative consequences, I want the technique to be released."

I internally chuckled, but I let what I could only hope looked like grateful smile grace my face. She couldn't make me abide by those terms, but as long as she didn't want to be released before I was out of use for her, I could at least pretend to agree.

"I accept your terms. Would you like to get started?"

At her nod, I stood up and gestured her to do the same. I began walking towards the door as I continued talking "In order to properly augment the Shinobi world, I believe it'd be most prudent to focus on those with S-rank talent or the potential to be an S-rank shinobi, and nurture their growth. Two of the most talented Shinobi currently under my command are Kimimaro and Kabuto."

At Kabuto's name she gave me a sharp glance. She had been the one to accept Kabuto back into Konoha after the war, so surely she wouldn't protest to working with him now?

"Kimimaro unfortunately has a disease called MPA, I believe you're familiar with it. At this time however, I didn't have the ability to treat him and you refused to treat him, and he died because of it. I'd like to preserve his life this time around. He's already an A-rank shinobi, despite his current withered and weak state, and with an extra 20 years of experience will likely be a powerful tool in combatting the Otsutsuki attackers."

She looked at me. "Orochimaru, you can't simply treat everyone like they're 'tools' to be honed for combating the Otsutsuki."

"Whatever you say. You could just as easily think of it as giving a young man a new chance at life."

We kept walking up towards where I would expect Kabuto to be. She then spoke up "I was also thinking. I know at least the basic knowledge behind 15 years of medical advancements going into the future. If you're serious about 'augmenting' the shinobi world, then shortcutting them 15 years of advancement would go a long way to improving the medical field beyond what it is or was. I could write a book detailing what I know and it could be sent to the Shinobi hospitals around the world, to at least give them an improved theoretical understanding of medical techniques."

I looked at her. Not a bad idea. I didn't really care, but it would be a waste if the scientific medical world spent 15 years relearning what was already known.

"That's not a bad idea. Here we are." I showed her into a room where I could sense Kabuto, and he immediately stood up, book moving to the side as he watched me enter. He stared at my feminine form and Tsunade with surprise. I'd forgotten. Tsunade knew I had transitioned, but effectively no one knew about it here.

Whatever. They weren't due an explanation.

"Kabuto. This is Tsunade Senju. She will be working to heal Kimimaro of his disease, and you work as her assistant. Show her respect, and generally obey her commands if you feel they wouldn't conflict with my wishes."

His eyes glistened, and he gave a bow to Tsunade "Hai Senju-Sama, it is a pleasure to meet you." I'd almost forgotten how polite Kabuto was.

I led the two of them to Kimimaro and informed Kimimaro of the events, and told Tsuande I'd meet up with her in a few hours. She confirmed, and let me leave without constraint. With both Tsunade and Kabuto, I wouldn't be any help in healing Kimimaro. I needed to go sort out some of the Oto shinobi and busy them with stuff to do now that they all hadn't died during my invasion of Konoha. Plus a lot of them were still running around in a panic about the Nidaime's sudden appearance and slaughter of dozens of shinobi about the hideout.

! !

It had taken 2 entire fucking days for someone to notice Jiriaya tied up in the tree. He'd sat there, entirely immobilized and with any chakra he tried to mold absorbed away. Orochi-fucking-maru. The asshole had left him here!

Part of Jiriaya was glad that Orochimaru hadn't killed him, but mainly he was pissed off for being humiliated and left on a tree. What if the bindings didn't wear off for weeks! What if he starved to death! In two days of boredom, Jiriaya didn't have much to do besides think angry thoughts about Orochimaru, endlessly think about food, try to prevent himself from pooping, and think about the implications of Orochimaru.

He, or maybe she? had sage mode and the wood release. And boobies. Big, perky and round boobies. Orochimaru being a 60+ year old man looking like a 20 year old hot babe with wood release and sage chakra was concerning.

Did he get the boobies so he could play with himself? Orochimaru had always struck Jiriaya as the sort of man who didn't want a women. Honestly Jiriaya wouldn't mind spending short bits of times in a smoking hot bod. He could have lesbian sex! Honestly the ideas for a new Icha Icha were the main thing to come to mind. There could be an anti-hero who discovers how to transform himself into a hot women, and then plays with himself and has hot lesbian sex. Or maybe a protagonist who finds a jutsu that turns his enemies into hot young women, who he then bangs?

That was how Jiriaya spent his next two days before he was finally discovered and rescued from his trap.

Eventually a villager had walked past, and Jiriaya had yelled out and gotten his attention. The villager luckily recognized Jiriaya as a Konoha Shinobi, and he went to fetch another shinobi. That shinobi, a chuunin, had tried to cut through the wood restraints for a few minutes in a futile effort, before he went to fetch a team of ANBU who finally managed to free Jiriaya.

He finally relieved himself and then headed to get some food on his way to reporting to the Hokage.

He went directly to the Hokage's tower and entered Sarutobi's office through the window.

Danzo was sitting in the office with Sarutobi.

"Hello Danzo, Sensei, do you mind if I talk to you for a moment, privately?"

"Jiriaya, good timing.". Sensei looked old and weary, as though he had aged a decade since I had last seen him only a few weeks ago.

"Orochimaru apparently invited Suna to participate in an invasion against us, and he is apparently in charge of a Shinobi village in the land of rice."

Danzo spoke up at this point. "We are currently discussing countermeasures to employ against him."

I stared at the two of them for a moment. "Where'd you learn this?"

I'd known about Oto of course, the new sound village, but I hadn't learned that Orochimaru was behind it.

"The Third Kazekage. He was in Konoha yesterday for the Chuunin exams and told me himself, saying he was loyal to his alliance with Konoha and was willing to work with us if we began a war against Sound."

Danzo snorted at this, his face showing that he probably had a different opinion.

Well fuck.

"Well I've some news about Orochimaru. I ran into him outside the village at a hotsprings."

Jiriaya relayed to Sarutobi and Danzo the events that transpired, the encounter at the hot spring, Orochimaru's hot new body, the use of the wood release and the sage mode. Sensei looked discomforted and defeated at every revelation, and it was Danzo who spoke up first.

"If this is all true, then Orochimaru is a far greater threat than we imagined. If he has an entire shinobi village under his control and the same kind of powers as Hashirama…"

None of it bode well, and the three men stood in silence, all contemplating the situation.

Danzo again took the initiative "While Orochimaru is dangerous, his actions in the Land of Rice Patties offers a unique opportunity to expand the territorial holdings of Hi No Kuni. It might be prudent to advise the Daimyo on the issue and see if he's interesting in trying to leverage Orochimaru's involvement in the country as a pretense for invasion."

Jiriaya sputtered at the statement, and quickly butted in "Isn't it a bit ridiculous to try and invade a country over the Kazekage's claim? We have no reason to believe him!"

The Sandaime Hokage sighed a deep weary sigh, and looked to Jiriaya. "We need more information about Orochimaru and this new village of his. If he left you alive once after running into you, it's hopeful that you might be able to get away with it again. I'm going to need you to head out and see if you can find any more information."

Hiruzen gave Jiriaya a firm glare "And remember, this is not an opportunity for you to try and chase Orochimaru down to bring him back. The man is far too gone to be allowed back. Keep your distance Jiriaya"

Jiriaya looked up at Hiruzen. That wasn't the plan. Jiriaya had been supposed to stay in the village and train Naruto for a few years.

"And you can take up Naruto's apprenticeship after you return. You'll only be gone for a few weeks, extra training with his team and Kakashi would do him good. He did well at the Chuunin exams."

The conversation quickly fell into a retelling of the Chuunin exams, which Jiriaya had unfortunately missed due to his vacation tied to a tree. Apparently Naruto had beaten the Hyuuga boy, Shino Aburame defeated the Kazekage's eldest son, the Kazekage's daughter had defeated Shikimaru Nara in a match where the Nara kid forfeited after winning the match, and the Ichibi container and the Uchiha boy match was interrupted by the Kazekage after his son nearly let lose the Ichibi from being hurt by Sasuke. The man had intervened with his golden dust, and Sasuke had won by default. Naruto beat Shino Aburame and the Uchiha lost to the Kazekage's daughter who went on to defeat Naruto in the finals.

It was never a good thing to have a foreign shinobi win a chuunin exams held in Konoha, but Jiriaya was heartened to hear that Naruto had made it to the finals. He'd been confident in Naruto, but had looked into Neji and learned that the boy was a skilled prodigy, and had been prepared for a loss.

At this point Jiriaya suggested that they promote Naruto to chuunin for his excellent performance, but Danzo interjected and suggested they simply promote Nara Shikimaru. The Kazekage had already stated that he was promoting his daughter. By only also promoting Nara Shikimaru, the genin who had actually defeated the Kazekage's daughter and eventual winner of the tournament, they'd be implying he was the defacto winner of the tournament. Hiruzen seemed to agree that none of the other Ninja displayed the mental preparedness or maturity for Chuunin level, even if the Hyuuga and Uchiha boy as well as Naruto might be edging into chuunin level combat skill. They agreed, and Shukaku Nara, Jounin commander and a uniformed ANBU member entered to begin a meeting with Hiruzen and Danzo regarding beefing village security in preparation for an attack by Orochimaru.

Jiriaya ducked out, and quickly headed towards Naruto to congratulate the boy. Probably not a bad time to start him on the Rasengan, he could work on the first part of the technique while Jiriaya went to the Land of Rice Patties.

A thought kept bothering Jiriaya however. Sensei had looked so old during that meeting, way older than the shriveled up prune that was Danzo. Honestly no one seemed on track to become Hokage within the next decade, and Jiriaya was seriously concerned Hiruzen might not make it until another Ninja filled his place.

~ ! ~ ! ~

Thank you for all the reviews! Having fun writing the story. I did the Jiriaya section mainly because I wanted everyone to know what was going on with Konoha. I obviously have no idea how the Chuunin exams may have gone without the invasion pretense, but the real Kazekage could've subdued Gaara and assuming the rest of their fight went the same way, it's likely he would've been forced to, to stop Gaara from unleashing the Ichibi in Konoha. I assume Naruto would've beat Shino because Shino's techniques, while great against puppets, seem like they'd be less effective against the poison-resistant healing/chakra machine that is an Uzumaki jinchuriki. Bad matchup for Shino.

If you can't see Temari beating Sasuke, which I totally can because the canon battle between them was literally Temari beating Sasuke around and then tripping on an explosive tag for the sake of plot, then just imagine that Sasuke got injured when he shoved his entire arm into the pile of sand being controlled by the insane demon-boy, and that injury resulted in Temari winning.


	6. Chapter 6

AN: Hey! Sorry for the long update time, I've been busy. I do intend to keep updating, but it'll be more slow, kinda like how this update was a bit slow. This is a creative hobby of mine, not an assignment! Thank you for all your reviews! I've been loving writing this story, and hearing reviews makes it all the more special. This chapter is a lot of development, the next chapter is going to refocus more on Orochimaru and the consequences of her being transgender.

~~ # ~

Orochimaru had never had a hard time earning money. Between assuming control of an entire nation, albeit a small one, full of shinobi whom she could collect a share of mission income from, and her natural wealth of talents and knowledge to which she felt no issue commoditizing if the price was appropriate, she had easily been able to assume a stockpile of wealth in her previous life.

In fact, the financial situation of Oto had been fabulous in the past, in the original timeline, the vast majority of her chuunin and genin shinobi had been slaughtered in the invasion of Konoha she had attempted, leaving behind a manageable pool of jounin. Because of Konoha's retaliatory invasion of the land of rice patties, she'd been forced to move most of her operations into her hideouts, which only furthered her wealth: Although it sounds expensive to maintain hideouts, the abandonment of anything resembling a village proper had removed virtually all of her expenses: She didn't have to pay for a hospital, police force, any structure. The shinobi under her control had begun to work for practically free: They were a nation at war, and operating was a matter of survival, not a paycheck. To abandon the hideouts meant death.

So the wealth she procured from her genetic consulting with Danzo, and the augmentation work she did with a few criminal organizations had gone a long way. Her organization also found that it rarely had to pay for things: A reputation for being criminal and kidnapping only allowed her to get away with what could be called "ransacking" the regions in which she operated. If she was going to have her ninja kidnap a man so she could use him to test out a tweak she had made to the cursed seal, it would be more suspicious if the man DIDN'T have all of his possessions and valuables stolen. So her ninja carefully pretended to be bandits, kidnapped with liberty, and fed themselves on the loot of those whose lives had been destroyed. She got followers, subjects and victims, and the men got paid without her really having to pay them. Everyone left alive, happy.

Another tidy benefit had been the promotion of a general sense of unsafety in Hi No Kuni, bandits were about, and Konoha was forced to stretch itself thin on the plethora of escorting missions. Obviously it was a negative to be funding Konoha so directly, but hampering the economy of Hi No Kuni and forcing Konoha to compromise between security and escort mission had been well worth the risk. Furthermore, Konoha had taken a lot of heat for the general lack of safety in Hi, they were charged with protecting the country by the Daimyo, yet sill so many went missing on the roads.

The fact that things had gone differently in this reality was why Orochimaru was currently on a small boat, traveling on the ocean in the dead of night, with 3 terrified genin and stash of sealing scrolls.  
Oto was in the middle of a financial crisis, the hundreds of ninja who were no longer dead didn't have missions to take, and without preparation and promise of riches in invasion, the Oto Shinobi were getting restless. Although Orochimaru still had cash stashed away for personal use, the village coffers were getting notably empty and the jounin council in charge of managing the village had been pressuring Orochimaru about the situation.

Orochimaru had never been interested in sports, so shamefully she was unable to exploit gambling and betting to her victory for some quick cash. What Orochimaru was an aficionado for, was politics and wordly events. And she distinctly remembered , nearly a decade after the 4th shinobi war, a vault was discovered on a small island near wave. The island appeared to outsiders to be desolate and abandoned, a rather large jutting rock, only about a quarter kilometer in area, but sharp and pointing upwards. With no plants or natural shelter, the island had been mainly unvisited. It was also close to the archipelago that had once been known as the Land of Whirlpools, a region rife with danger for the average shinobi.

It was quite fortunate to the Country of Water, which had annexed the Land of Whirpools shortly after the 4th shinobi war, that one of their few earth jutsu users had taken a brief stop on the island, intending to warp the jutting stone into a statue to commemorate the Water Nation, as part of their recolonization efforts in the region. During the mans efforts to turn the tall rock into a symbol of national pride, he had realized through his technique that buried underneath the rock, as it extended into the stone, a large metal structure was buried underneath the rock. He opened a hole to the metal structure and realized it was a vault, covered in protective seals. He had immediately thought he had discovered a Uzumaki vault, and Kiri sent a team of their best seal experts to slowly dismantle the vault, hoping for secrets and techniques inside.

What they had discovered though wasn't an Uzumaki vault, but rather a vault filled with nearly 400 million ryo and a large sum of scrolls detailing Takigakure secret jutsu techniques. An investigation concluded that the vault had been Kakuzu's, a secret vault of cash he had likely kept separate from other holdings (including nearly a hundred million he had kept in Amegakure which Konan had taken over after his death, and hundreds of millions he had invested across the elemental nations under various pseudonyms, and possibly more cash that had never been found). The country of Water had "graciously" returned to Takigakure the hidden techniques, after various public accusations that they had made copies of all the scrolls before doing so, and had reclaimed all the ryo for themselves to international discontent. However, given most of Kakuzu's wealth had been in fact obtained semi-legally through the bounty trade, no one had a strong claim to cash otherwise, and Kiri quickly put a spin on the cash, labeling it as a semi-charitable "Waterfall Region Development Fund", a way of trying to make their annexation of the waterfall region sound charitable and justify profiting off of a known Akatsuki criminal.

Kiri would not be getting the cash this time around however. Orochimaru arrived at the island, using senjutsu to ensure that she wasn't lucky enough to arrive at the island the same time as Kakuzu was making a deposit, and she quickly dug open a large opening to the vault. The squirming genin left on the boat to wait, she spent nearly an entire night carefully disabling the seals around the vault.

They were relatively decent sealwork for something clearly not done by a seal master, the seals primary purpose were to release a large volume of poisonous gas every time the vault was accessed, explode outwards at any tampering, and a variety of other extremely deadly boobytraps. Kakuzu had clearly taken well advantage of his own semi-immortality and made the vault a literal deathtrap.

Unfortunately for Kakuzu, Orochimaru was far better at the immortality game, and she was able to open the vault with only a few large bursts of poisonous gas.

Poison had stopped being effective against her when she learned to grow new bodies out of chakra and slide out of her old bodies, not to mention the natural resistance that came from replacing her body with what she could only describe as that of a snake demoness possessing a half-plant body.

As she verified the vault was safe to enter and got the genin to work sealing away the wealth contained, she could only smile at the thought of how Kakuzu would rage upon discovering what had happened to his vault.

~ ! ~ ~ ! #

Leaving with 3 genin and coming back alone had hardly bothered the jounin council that administered Oto on her behalf, no had really expected the genin to come back alive after she had specifically requested genin assistance, but dropping off 300 million ryo, and a copy she had made of Takigakure's forbidden techniques, had suitably quelled any concerns they might have had with her leadership after the invasion fell through.

Ideally that'd be enough to supplement the villages income for years, and keep them from needing more of her hand holding. She'd been half tempted to simply abandon the country as a whole, running off with the cash and anyone she saw as valuable.

But even if she didn't have any immediate needs for a village, nor did she really expect the village to contribute any S-rank shinobi who could reasonably challenge Akatsuki or contribute in stopping the Otsutsuki. The only S-rank shinobi that had risen out of Oto in the past had been Kabuto, Guren, Kimimaro and Sasuke. Suigetsu might've eventually be roughly S-rank, but only a few decades after the 4th shinbo war.

Kimimaro had gotten fatally ill and gotten killed by genin, a shameful end even if the genin did have tailed beasts sealed in them, Guren had run off in that disastrously failed attempt to use her as a handler for the boy with the power to control the Sanbi. Kabuto and Sasuke were the only ones who had ended up actually succeeding, if you count Sasuke trying to kill Orochimaru and Kabuto running off to join the Akatsuki and then proceed to give up on science in some foolish orphanage matron fantasy.

To be fair, Kabuto had been planning on betraying Obito once the 4th shinobi village had been suitably defeated, and run off with all the tailed beasts. Itachi had ruined those plans with his stupid sharingan tricks that had let him both overcome the reincarnation jutsu, and then defeat Kabuto with another Sharingan trick.

It was the defeat of Kabuto in the completely uncontrolled way that had left Kabuto's careful watching of Madara's actions slip, letting Madara free himself of the Edo Tensei when the technique was released. At that point, things really had gone south with Madara in control of himself. Damn Itachi.

Regardless, things would be better this around: Guren would be handled more carefully, Kabuto would prosper from a decades head start that Orochimaru could give him, and Kimimaro would be saved from his illness this time around, and given opportunity to grow even more powerful. He had never gotten his chance at his full potential the first time around. And of course Sasuke, Orochimaru would not be troubling herself overly with this time.

Orochimaru took a break from her musings and strolled through the Oto Hospital. Still being a village proper and not a series of underground hideouts, Oto had a decent sized Hospital.

She opened her Senjutsu sense and reached out to find Tsunade, the cracked ghost that was her soul bound to a half-dead mans body. Orochimaru moved towards Tsunade, and saw her old teammate in action: Tsunade was rushing around with confidence, Kabuto on her wings, discussing something about the advancements in Oncology that had developed in the future decades.

It really was perfect. Oto got an S-rank medical genius with decades years of future knowledge and decades of hospital and village management experience, and it seemed that Tsunade had taken a shining to this young impressionable Kabuto. If anything, it seemed as though Tsunade was making it her mission to mold Kabuto into a ninja dedicated to medical science instead of the Orochimaru copycat he had become. Tsunade had already composed a short book detailing some of the important findings in medicine, and as per their agreement, Orochimaru had sent copies of the findings to the major hospitals around the world. It was not public knowledge that Oto was Orochimaru's village, and so they were able to get away with giving Tsunade a pseudonym. Funny this time around, Oto would probably get a reputation as the center of a new wave of scientific and medical accomplishments.

Orochimaru was broken from his musings to see a Tayuya landing in front of him, and giving a deep bow. Ah, the sound four. Trusted body guards a long time ago, a disappointing investment of time in hindsight. They'd been outcasts, freaks who were easily exploited into service, but none of their techniques had ended up being that useful. They were decent shinobi overall though.

"Orochimaru-Sama, you've been away for nearly 2 weeks, and you had previously instructed the sound five, after the invasion, to secure Sasuke Uchiha. We were unable to verify if you wanted us to keep the mission up in light of the invasion being cancelled, but we proceeded anyways. Sasuke came willingly, and with Kimimaro's assistance we were able to disable the anbu squad that the village had sent to inhibit our travels. Furthermore, a number of genin had followed the team, we managed to capture what we believe to be the kyuubi container."

What.

Orochimaru ignored Tayuya and extended her sage mode, searching for the chakra signature she had been familiar with.

My fucking god.  
Sasuke was here. And Naruto.

Orochimaru had not planned on kidnapping Sasuke this time around, she had hoped the boy would be able to make his own in Konoha, perhaps piggyback on Jiriaya with Naruto or learn from Kakashi. The boy had certainly been a worthwhile investment in the past, he had become the second strongest shinobi in the world. For fucks sake.

Kidnapping Naruto too, that would likely bring Konoha back down again on Oto in a way that Orochimaru had been hoping to avoid this time around. It'd also likely attract the attention of the Akatsuki.

Orochimaru moved quickly to the dungeon where Naruto and Sasuke were being kept. Sasuke was freely sitting on a couch arguing with Kimimaro about when he was going to get to see Orochimaru, and Naruto was seemingly unconscious and bound.

"I came here to get training from Orochimaru of the Sanin, not to sit in this room with nothing to do but listen to the dobe snoring. At the very least if he won't come train me, you should train me."

The arguments kept going on and on.

Orochimaru paused and meditated briefly on what to do.

She didn't want to train Sasuke this time around, and she certainly wasn't interested in training Naruto. He'd already signed the toad summons at this point, she'd have to seal his connection to the other planes the moment he regained consciousness to prevent him from being reverse summoned away. For fucks sake. She needed to return Naruto to Konoha, hopefully making something equitable out of the exchange and not it being a pretense for extended war with Konoha. She already had it reported from her Suna spies that Suna had informed Konoha about Orochimaru's involvement in Oto, it would be the first place they'd look for Naruto.

It would probably be best to return Sasuke too. Perhaps she could send a diplomat to Konoha, agree to return them in exchange for an agreement to a cease fire? Tsunade had refused the handful of offers of peace she had sent along, up until the 4th shinobi war. But that was after the Konoha invasion. And Sarutobi was already famous for being soft, and he was still in charge atm. Perhaps an agreement to return Sasuke and Naruto, and an agreement for Orochimaru and Konoha to not bother each other?

If that didn't work out, the alternative was to raise an army of the undead to destroy Konoha for real this time, and then resurrect Konoha's top brass to train Sasuke and Naruto into tip-top shape for the Otsutsuki invasion. Actually, that's not a bad idea.

Orochimaru paused, thinking of Tsunade's agreement to help her only if she didn't take any provocative actions against Konoha. That would clearly be a provocative action against Konoha. Of course Orochimaru could always force Tsunade to obey her, but she'd be a much less effective mechanical tool than she is as willing assistant. The same is true for virtually all of the undead. Damn this entire thing.

Orochimaru briefly entertained the idea of resurrecting Sensei from the old timeline, to send as his diplomat, but shuddered at the image. Most people probably wouldn't do well to seeing a resurrected older version of themselves show up under what appears to be a traitors control. Being able to verify knowledge that only Sarutobi has would probably only upset them even more: It'd imply that Orochimaru can create simulacrums of living people and mine them for information. Half-true, but a very valid fear. Konoha would probably pull one of their dusty doomsday techniques out of hiding and try to just blow Oto off the planet out of fear. Probably wouldn't work, but hey, it's hard to test city destroying techniques.

Orochimaru composed a letter in her own handwriting detailing that she sincerely did not intend to kidnap Sasuke or Naruto, that the entire mixup was a complete misunderstanding, and that she would like to have diplomats on behalf of Orochimaru meet Konoha diplomats to seek a peaceful resolution to this encounter.

Orochimaru could send Naruto and Sasuke directly back with the letter, but holding onto them atm was likely a better leverage. If she simply returned them, Konoha may still prosecute her for all their other misgivings, and attack Oto. But having the last Uchiha, the Kyuubi and the son of the fourth Hokage? They'd probably take the chance at peace to get them back. She sent a team of chuunin wearing diplomatic uniforms towards Konoha with the message, as well as a picture of Sasuke and Naruto with a caption (to prove in good health). She then ordered the sound five to take Naruto and Sasuke to the northern base, the one the fewest in Oto knew about.

Orochimaru smiled.

She went to her private laboratory in Oto, and found the stash of DNA she kept. A long strand of red hair, and a small piece of black hair. Perhaps she could get Naruto and Sasuke a headstart on their training with a bit of family reunion for them.

And there you go! Another chapter.


	7. Chapter 7

AN: Hello! Back in the states, hectic life being fun. Had a free morning and I was feeling like writing! Slight, implied few-days timeskip between this chapter and the last.

There was something absolutely peculiar about the human body and mind. Orochimaru had grown to nearly 70 before sending herself back in time, and she'd observed phenomenon after phenomenon. There was a theory among the masses and progressive part of society that all people were equal, and that nearly all had the ability to become exceptional.

Orochimaru actually did believe that everyone had potential: She'd seen idiots grow into s-rank ninja, she'd even met a renowned scientist once who was both deaf and blind, barely trudging along with the help of medical fuinjutsu to navigate (her interest had been piqued by the seal applied to the man, a rudimentary and experimental seal that had been applied after medical examination determined the man's neural pathways for vision and sound too decayed to be healed, the seal had managed to help the man replicate an echolocation jutsu ).

But there was one glaring truth, regardless of whether or not average civilian potential was present among all humans: the potential to be a great ninja was terribly tied to genetics. There was a reason few kages (including no hokages) had ever been civilian born, why you saw s-rank shinobi beget s-rank shinobi. Part of the reason was privilege: those born to powerful or renowned shinobi were afforded tutoring by those shinobi, those born to clans were afforded secret clan techniques and resources not given to others. Hell, the great Naruto Uzumaki, in addition to whatever genetic gifts he was endowed, was given personal favor by hokages and nigh infinite chakra by his father on his birthday. The other part, besides the privilege, was purely genetic. Not even touching on the topic of kekkai genkai, all sorts of traits intrinsic to being a good ninja was genetic, the most notable being chakra capacity.

It was why Tsunade would likely always be a better ninja than Sakura, even if one day long after Sakura's death she surpasses Tsunade's overall skill due the benefit of medical advancements: Tsunade simply had far more chakra than her apprentice. While Tsunade's perfect chakra control was an amazing feat, it was the combination of perfect chakra control and the roaring chakra capacity of Senju and Uzumaki blood that had made the woman a powerhouse and world legend, it was what let her heal hundreds at once, and share chakra through summons to an entire battlefield.

Orochimaru was not so naturally gifted. She'd been civilian born, although lucky enough to have a slightly higher chakra capacity than most civilians, it had been only average for a shinobi. Jiriaya had far more chakra than her and used that to keep up. Not only was Orochimaru civilian born, but she was an Orphan. She had been very close to her parents at a young age, they'd been encouraging, loving, supporting, all manner of fantastic adjectives. They'd been poor but comfortable, they had to scrape together funds to pay for Orochimaru's academy fees, take out of their retirement.

It was one of the things Orochimaru never forgave the Shinobi world for, killing her parents.

So while Orochimaru understood that genetics and privilege were all incredibly wound up in who became a strong shinobi, she also knew it wasn't everything. She'd persevered to the top of her academy class, became the prized pupil of the Third Hokage, outshining the Senju heiress. She'd made a name and legend for herself in the second shinobi war, and established herself as one of its most powerful shinobi during the third. She became a world-leading scientist, and achieved things thought nearly impossible, with her daring, her willingness to do the taboo. And ultimately, she'd nearly been promoted Hokage, someone who should've been a shining beacon to the civilians of the world that achievement is entirely within their reach. Of course instead they gave the job to the shinobi-born Minato, a barely wet shinobi who made a name for himself by having Jiriaya steal Hiriashin from the Senju libraries (what a sweetheart Tsunade was to let Jiriaya persue the Senju's fuuinjutsu library, a privilege she'd never gave Orochimaru). Jiriaya handing the boy a premiere-level summons for free after he'd been handed clan treasures, helped solidified the boys jumpstart over Orochimaru.

It was all this privilege and genetic benefit that had Orochimaru obsessed with techniques and kekkai genkai. She wouldn't let clans hoarding techinques hold her back, and so she resolved to learn every technique in the world, including all the clan ones. She even explored how to give herself, to give others, to maybe even give everyone kekkai genkai. When she learned she didn't have the chakra capacity to enter sage mode, even after she spent months learning how, mastering it far faster than the shinobi-born Jiriaya who DID have the chakra capacity to enter sage mode, she vowed she would figure out a way to give herself sage mode. That was something she accomplished. (nevermind that Kabuto was the one to finally finish her work, she had done most of the research leading up to it).

Orochimaru had always toyed with the idea of being a champion of the downtrodden. A superior ninja who preached equality and access, who gave power to others to allow all the privileges of a shinobi-born life. She'd toyed with the messiah-tactic in her recruiting for the sound village, promising power, and giving it to some. Her cursed seal was to the be the culmination of that promise, a powerful seal that granted sage mode, possibly even kekkai genkai, in return for the loyalty to Orochimaru that only the promise of death can buy.

By the time she'd finished her curse seal, by the time it became something that was more power-giving than it was control, it had been outlawed and herself thrown into a state of constant observation by the shinobi of the leaf, with the threat of powerful, clan-born shinobi like Naruto and Sasuke to keep her in check, to keep her down. Of course the sage-mode enabling part of the cursed seal wasn't what made the seal illegal, but rather the soul-corrupting, Orochimaru-body-stealing-enabling part that made it illegal. Also the part that let Orochimaru cause extreme pain or even death to those who dared defy her. Of course her cursed seal had never been perfect. It didn't magically give those without the chakra capacity to enter sage-mode more chakra. But it was one of her miraculous inventions, using the sage-chakra absorbing cells of Juugo to enable the wearer to absorb sage chakra. Juugo's cells had a safety mechanism that caused excess chakra to be pushed into monstrous battle transformations and rage, and Orochimaru had managed to rewrite the kekkai genkai into pouring the excess back into the world around them.

It was out of his contribution to one of Orochimaru's greatest accomplishments that caused Orochimaru to visit Juugo. The adult the boy had turned into had been grateful beyond all words when Orochimaru had finally gifted him the ability to suppress his transformations, a single gift made for selfish reasons had undone decades of neglect and abuse and given the adult Orochimaru a loyal follower. It was for this reason that she gave the boy the new cursed seal, unshackled him from his chains, and watched amused as the boy cried into Kimimaro's shoulders. Kimimaro was out of the hospital, and as he hugged his crying, joyful friend, he gave Orochimaru a look of loyalty that spoke of a gratefulness that extended far more than fetching the medic that saved his life. It was a look that harkened back to what Orochimaru had once pondered about, made idle plans to explore but had never fully fleshed out. It was a look someone gave their messiah.

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Orochimaru felt blessed. Her plan to keep the presence of Naruto and Sasuke in her base a secret from Tsunade had thus far panned out, the two boys enraptured by the zombies she'd reanimated for them. They took their task to train seriously, as they had to (quite a thing to control someone), but they managed to squeeze in as much bonding and story telling as their mouths could muster. The sound four took the task of guarding the room where the boys were being kept, and keeping the boys presence a secret, as seriously as one would when told to do so on threat of death by Orochimaru.

It was amusing the forlorn looks the two boys gave Orochimaru when she entered the room, the quick "I love you's" given by the two mother's. As though Orochimaru's very presence was the harbinger of their ends. It was amusing to see the absolute despair on Sasuke's face when Orochimaru told the two zombies to accompany him into the other room, the defiant attempt by Naruto to stop him from taking his mother away that was thwarted by a simple biding with wood release. The two women of course complied, as the Edo tensei were augh to do. Orochimaru could've just summoned the two women to her for a status report, but it was far more amusing to see the two boys think they were done with their mothers.

She got a status report from the mothers. Of course the boys training had gone as well as only 5 days of training could go, they were focusing on teaching clan techniques that would be hard to learn otherwise. And apparently Naruto now knew who his father was. Presumably nothing bad would happen of the boy knowing who his father was. Luckily Orochimaru learned that Mikoto had not yet mentioned to Sasuke the truth about the Uchiha massacre (probably thinking telling the boy Konoha killed his family would only cement loyalty to the man who took him from Konoha and gave him back his mother), and the lady was surprised when Orochimaru told her to NOT tell Sasuke the truth of the massacre, to give no mention of Itachi's motives, the planned rebellion, or any of the details of the night, nor to tell Sasuke that Orochimaru had forbidden her from telling him anything. Whether she was more surprised about Orochimaru seeming to know the details of the massacre or about his lack of willingness to use that to exploit loyalty out of Sasuke was not something Orochimaru could tell.

Given the timeframe, a reply from her diplomat should be arriving that day, ideally to schedule a meeting to discuss the return of Naruto and Sasuke, and Orochimaru decided to finally pull the trigger.

She summoned Kimimaro to her private laboratory, hid underground her two Tobirama's, and summoned Tsunade and Kabuto to standby. She carefully removed his curse seal (she had designed the curse seal to be impossible to 'unseal' without killing the host, and it had significant protections against simply being cut out, as it was interwound into the man's chakra network. However, with her knowledge and control of the seal she could "unwind" it from the network, tightly contain it within itself, and then removing it was as simple as cutting about an inch and a half of flesh off the man's neck around the seal, which was simple enough with trained medical shinobi like Tsunade and Kabuto). After she bound the seal(she was going to keep that part a secret), she summoned Kabuto and Tsunade in the room, had Kabuto cut off the flesh, and the two of them quickly healed the wound to prevent complications.

Orochimaru then gave Kimimaro the new cursed seal, the one that would enable him to enter sage mode. She spent a brief amount of time teaching the boy how to use it, marveled at the sheer power of his techniques. Between sage mode and his kekkai genkai, Kimimaro was certainly the strongest living ninja under her employ. She instructed him to go find Juugo and spend the timebeing training, as Juugo also needed to learn to control a real, structured sage mode. He was happy to comply.

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The diplomat arrived back, along with a small green-brown toad lying on his head, looking tired and sweaty from days spent running, with the news that Hiruzen had agreed to a meeting to discuss diplomacy as a way of resolving the situation. Apparently, Hiruzen proposed that Orochimaru, or a designated negotiator and only up to one additional ninja, meet Jiriaya and a negotiator ninja at a neutral location. The toad was to be told the news of acceptance of the terms, and would then relay them to Jiriaya. Amusing. It would be absolutely delightful to see Jiriaya again, especially after the warm hello Orochimaru got to give him last time. With a smile that made both her own diplomat and the toad squirm, she accepted the proposed meeting place of a minor lord at the border of Land of Fire who was the frequent host of diplomatic talks between the Land of Rice Patties and the Land of Fire(the civilian governments).

She smuggled Naruto and Sasuke, along with the sound five to a hideout (one of her more private ones, that was more of a cache than a real hideout/base). She summoned the two zombie mother's, reiterated the instructions to train the boys, protect them, prevent kidnapping, prevent the boys from running away, and detain any creature that entered the room besides Orochimaru or one of the sound five, took Kimimaro and traveled to the manor for the meeting.

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Orochimaru did pack an outfit for the meeting. Before she had left, she had gone to her wardrobe, been dismayed at the lack of solid female clothing, considered wearing the dress from the seamstress that hadn't been ruined, and stalked around the village looking for someone about her size. She quickly found a civilian baker who matched her dimensions, and after a mere look was on her way to the baker's house to peruse the wardrobe. Most of it was quite plebian, but in addition to a tacky white wedding dress that spoke of shopping on a budget, the lady did have a long and quite well-kept pale blue bathrobe. There was something about the causal nonchalance of attending diplomatic talks between two ninjas in a bathrobe that spoke to Orochimaru, and it was quickly sequestered from the baker as the outfit for the talks. She was even a good enough mood from the image of a bathrobe to pay the woman for trouble of having Orochimaru terrify her, make her leave work to escort her to her bedroom, walk past her two children who seemed far more interested in meeting Orochimaru than was good for their mother's heart, and take some of her clothing.

! $ ! $$ $ $ $ ! ! $!$! !$$$! !

Kimimaro did his best to not give Orochimaru a strange look when she donned the bathrobe prior to entering the manner for talks, nor did he seem altogether comfortable with Orochimaru stripping naked first, his eyes briefly pulling to her breast before he reddened, slammed his eyes shut and turned around. She entered sage mode, and sure enough, she could feel Jiriaya's presence in the manor, also in sage mode, their mutual presence seeming to acknowledge and touch each other. Kimimaro had been instructed to not enter sage mode unless it came down to a battle, Orochimaru had no reason to advertise to Jiriaya that the miracle of her invention was inherently giftable.

She glided into the meeting room after being escorted there by a servant who was all too-aware of the reputation of Orochimaru. A stern looking, grey-haired negotiator ninja stood behind a chair on the far-side of the table, a casual-looking Jiriaya who was slumped in a chair with his feet propped up on the table, a pose that screamed "non-dangerous" but was defied by Orochimaru's ability to feel the sage chakra flowing into him, as well as the emotion sensing telling her that he was incredibly on edge.

"Orochimaru-baby, good to see you again" Jiriaya said, mouth smiling, but without actually breaking the stillness needed to gather sage chakra. The negotiator frowned at bathrobe-clad Orochimaru, gestured to the seat across from him, and pulled out his own chair, prepared to sit as Orochimaru did.

Orochimaru sauntered over to the chair opposite the negotiator, giving herself the rhythmic sway of a woman without a care in the world. "Hello Jiriaya, it's good to see you doing better than you were last time we chatted".

The negotiator coughed, sat as Orochimaru plomped herself in her chair, and started

"Hello. My name is Taro Aso. These are negotiations regarding the kidnapping of Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumuaki Naruto by the 'Sound Four' of the Sound Village. Konoha has heard the plea for a non-violent resolution to this issue and agrees to not take the kidnapping as an act of war by the Sound Village in exchange for the prompt return of the two kidnapped boys in full health, as well as the four ninja who allegedly conducted this kidnapping without the permission of the Sound Village. If their actions are not to be taken as representatives of their village, the Sound Village in good faith should denounce their actions as those of Missing Ninja and relinquish them to Konoha whose laws they have violated"

Orochimaru stayed silent throughout the spiel. The Sound Four weren't really all that much to her, but the position of power was on her side, not Konoha's. Konoha would normally have an advantage in such negotiations with a smaller village as they could use the threat of extending the wrongdoing into an act of war, a war whatever village they were negotiating with would prefer to avoid. However, Orochimaru had an even stronger card to play

"Hello Taro Aso, my name is Orochimaru of the Sannin." Orochimaru let a feminine purr in her speech. "I want these negotiations to be quick as the outcome of this meeting can really only go two ways from my point of view. I am going to give back Naruto and Sasuke to you, and in exchange you will leave me and my village alone, all forgiven. Alternatively you can refuse, I will kill both of you, and then as they valiantly rise the Leaf village to the call of war against Sound, I will go to Kumo, and offer them a new dojutsu breeder, as well as wood-release babies in exchange for their help of war with the aggressive Konoha tyrants who want to conquer a country on their border. I will then go to Iwa, and hand them the fourth hokage's son and the Kyuubi, and see if in exchange they will also be convinced to help Sound repel and crush their would-be-invaders. And even if Konoha manages to defeat us, or the alliances don't pan out, after hundreds of leaf ninja have died for the cause of reclaiming the bloodline and jinchuriki they'll never get back, and the sound village is razed to the ground and captured by Konoha ninja, I will still be perfectly happy because I will simply flee, to re-enter the underground and fuck over Konoha another day."

I pause there, relishing the alarm and tenseness in Jiriaya's emotions. The negotiator was relatively calm however, and I continued "to me, the choice is clear. I don't want to bother Konoha, I don't want their jinchuriki or their Uchiha, they can have them back. In fact, I will even sweeten the deal, and give intel on the Akatsuki to my dear friend Jiriaya here". At the mention of Akatsuki, Jiriaya narrows his focus to a razor edge and with a surge of intent that draws me to look at him instead of directly at the negotiator, I see him scratch the pants of his leg in what must clearly have been a signal.

The negotiator sighs. "Fine. In exchange for forgiving the actions of the Sound Village for kidnapping Konoha's ninja, the Sound Village shall provide intel on the Akatsuki-" the man pronounces the Akatsuki like it's a foreign word, enunciating each syllable carefully, he clearly has no idea what it is but understands it must be important if it bought Jiriaya's approval "and promptly returning unharmed the Ninja that were kidnapped".

I smirk, and stand. I nod to Jiriaya and the negotiator, and tell them I'll be back the next day with the two boys and intel on the Akatsuki, and I saunter out of the room again, Kimimaro stiffly following behind me.

! $ ! $!$! $$ ! !$

Sasuke gives me a glowering look when I inform him that I'm returning him to Konoha, and looks at his mother longingly. I state "I am perfectly happy to let your mothers go with you, but Konoha is unlikely to let them anywhere near you two, and probably just keep them sealed away to prevent them from relaying info to me." I inform the two of them that perhaps one-day if I see them again I'll resummons their mother's for them and let them bond some more. Sasuke demands to stay with me and his mother, but I tell him that I can't help him get strong, only Konoha will be willing to, I give him a sickening spiel about how Konoha made ninja strong like myself, itachi, the hokages, and despite his protests I gather him up with a tendril of wood release and pull him along with me to the manor, making sure to blind him and Naruto as we leave the hideout. The two undead mother's give out last goodbyes as I take their sons away, and I instruct them to wait and guard the hideout. I fill out a sheet of info on the Akatsuki as I make my way to the manor with the two boys, Sasuke tied up and gagged after he proved himself unable to stop complaining, and Naruto following, sadness of saying goodbye forgotten as he bounded around in that energetic-child manner. Naruto asked me a few questions like "Why did you leave Konoha" and "Are you a guy or girl? My mom kept saying you were a guy but you have boobs and only girls have boobs" and "did you steal my sexy-no-jutsu" and "can you teach me a jutsu" that made me question his education, and after kurt replies along the lines of "political reasons, girl, no, no" he eventually stopped bothering me and annoyed Kimimaro and Sasuke for the rest of the trip. It was definitely fun to see Sasuke tied up in wood release, carried like a baby by Kimimaro getting poked incessantly by Naruto.

I filled out quite a lot of Akatsuki information:

"

Mission of organization: Acquire all tailed beasts to create a doomsday weapon to destroy the shinobi villages and use threat of destruction to create worldwide peace.

Nagato Uzumaki, leader, wields rinnegan, uses rinnegan to control human puppets to fight with, also leader of Rain village

Konan, blue haired, female, known as an Angel in rain village, uses paper techniques

Itachi Uchiha, you guys know him

Kisame Hoshigaki, bingo book describes him as well as I can

Sasori of the Red Sand, ditto above

Deidara of Iwagakure, explosion release, can mold explosive clay to create animated explosives

Hidan of Yugakure, Jashin-worshipper, apparently immortal and can survive nearly anything, including decapitation. Signature technique involves using an injury-mirroring technique based on ingesting someone's blood, then inflicting self harm

Kakuzu of Takigakure, technique involves stealing hearts from enemies, storing multiple hearts in body. See bingo book for else

Zetsu: strange plant man, two-halves, white part can copy chakra signatures and use wood release, black part expected very dangerous, white zetsu can microscopic clones that can sit idle and be undetected by all chakra sensors, can only be detected by Sage Mode but you have to know what to look for

Tobi: a masked man who is secretly Obito Uchiha, who was kidnapped by Madara Uchiha (who escaped the battle with Hashirama and survived long enough to brainwash Obito before dying). Obito Uchiha currently crazy, has Mangekyou sharingan, can enter an alternate dimension and use technique to avoid physical harm or travel great distances fast, is secretly tricking Nagato, has plan on fusing the nine tailed beasts back together into the 10-tailed beasts (which is a real thing), reviving Madara Uchiha with Nagato's rinnegan (rinnegan can truly revive the dead), sealing Jubi into Madara Uchiha, Madara then planning on using power of Jubi to cast a genjutsu on entire world to achieve world-peace.

Orochimaru also filled all the other info she had.

Orochimaru was pretty skeptical that Jiriaya would even believe the above, so she decided to give him about half of the white-zetsu spores she had managed to acquire, locked into a sealed glass jar. Orochimaru was actually being incredibly generous with the amount of information she was giving Konoha, but the Akatsuki was as much her enemy as it was Konoha's and she had no intention on letting things escalate to where they did last time. Ideally with this foreknowledge, maybe something good will happen.

Orochimaru dropped off Sasuke and Naruto at the manor, the two of them running over to Jiriaya, and she gave the Akatsuki paper and jar of white zetsu spores to a servant who carried them over to Jiriaya.

She waved from the distance, and promptly shunshin'd away with kimimaro.

Hopefully nothing too bad will come of Konoha knowing this much about the Akatsuki this early.


End file.
